


Behind The Eyes

by ArilynShepard



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4270299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArilynShepard/pseuds/ArilynShepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Amelia Pond and her sister Aila met the Doctor all those years ago. They could never have imagined how much he would change their lives. As they fly through time and space together, the Doctor gets a bit more that he expected as the Pond girls change his life forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Eleventh Hour

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Dr. Who or any of the plots I borrow for this story.

“Dear Santa, thank you for the dolls and the pencils and the fish. It's Easter now so I hope I didn't wake you. But honest, it is an emergency.” Seven year old Amelia Pond kneels next to her bed eyes closed in prayer. “There's a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it's just an ordinary crack, but I know it's not, because at night, there's voices. So please, please, could you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman. Or ...”

In the doorway holding a raggedy teddy bear with a red bow-tie is her sister, six year old Aila watching the older girl. Both are distracted by a sudden whooshing noise outside, closely followed by a loud crash.

“Back in a moment.” Amelia promises before standing up and noticing her sister for the first time. She grabs a flashlight off the dresser and looks outside whispering. “Thank you Santa.”

“You're supposed to be sleeping Aila.” She scolds her sister.

“I couldn't sleep. What's outside? Can I come?”

“Fine, but do as I say.” Amelia grabs onto her sister's hand leading her downstairs and outside.

On its side in their backyard is a blue police box with smoke rising from it. Just as they get close to it, the doors fly open and a hook with a rope attached fly out, hooking onto a piece of overturned metal furniture. Suddenly a soaking wet man pops up.

“Can I have an apple? All I can think about, apples. I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving. That's new. Never had cravings before.” He climbs up out of his box looking down behind him. “Whoa! Look at that!”

“Are you okay?” Aila asks, peeking around her sister to get a good look at the raggedy man before them.

“Just had a fall. All the way down there, right to the library. Hell of a climb back up.” He explains rolling up his sleeves.

“You're soaking wet.” Amelia points out.

“I was in the swimming pool.”

“You said you were in the library.” Amelia looks confused.

“So was the swimming pool.”

“Are you a policeman?” Aila questions.

“Why? Did one of you call a policeman?”

“Did you come about the crack in my wall?” Amelia asks.

“What..” He falls forward gripping his chest in pain.

Aila lets go of her sister hand and steps closer to the man.

“Are you all right, mister?”

“No, I'm fine, it's okay. This is all perfectly...” Golden smoke rises from his mouth as he speaks.

“Who are you?” Amelia tugs on Aila's arm trying to pull her away from the man.

“I don't know yet. I'm still cooking.” His hands glow gold. “Does it scare you?”

“No, it's just looks a bit weird.” Amelia answers and Aila just shakes her head in agreement.

“No, no no. The crack in your wall. Does it scare you?”

“Yes”

“Well, then, no time to lose.” He hops to his feet. “I'm the Doctor. Do everything I tell you, don't ask stupid questions and don't wander off.” Then he promptly smacks face first into a tree causing Aila to giggle a bit.

“You think that's funny?” The doctor smiles at her, getting to his feet. “Early days. Steering's a bit off.”

Once inside Amelia goes looking for his apple while Aila sits next to him at the table.

“If you're a doctor why does your box say Police?” Aila asks as he takes a bite out of then spits out the apple.

“That's disgusting. What is that?”

“An apple” Amelia explains.

“Apples are rubbish I hate apples.” He tosses it away.

A little while later after Amelia has cooked him half a dozen things only to have him spit them out, they are all sitting around the table eating fish fingers and custard.

“What are your names?” The Doctor looks between the two of them. “Are you twins?”

“I'm Amelia Pond and this is my little sister Aila. I'm seven and she's six.”

“Oh, those are brilliant names. Amelia and Aila Pond, like names in a fairy tale. Are we in Scotland?”

“No. Had to move to Enland. It's rubbish.”

“It's not rubbish Amelia. I like it here.” Aila argues.

“You're too young to know it's rubbish Aila.”

“I'm only a year younger. I'm not a baby.”

“Says the girl with the teddy.”

“Okay, okay let's agree to disagree about whether or not England is rubbish. Where is your mum and dad? All this noise should have woken them.”

“We don't have a mum and dad. Just an Aunt.” Aila explains.

“I don't even have an Aunt.”

“You're lucky.” Amy tells him.

“I know. So your Aunt. Where is she?”

“She's out.” Aila answers.

“And she left the two of you all alone?”

“We're not scared. Besides I've been taking care or Aila since she was a baby.”

“Of course you're not. You're not scared of anything! Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of the box, man eats fish custard, and look at you both, just sitting there. So you know what I think?”

“What?”

“Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall.”

Upstairs Amelia and Aila follow The Doctor into Amelia's room to examine the crack.

“This wall is solid and the crack doesn't go all the way through it. So here's a thing, where's the draught coming from?” He pulls out what looks like a tiny flashlight and points it at the wall. “Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. You know what the crack is?”

“What?”

“It's a crack. But I'll tell you something funny. If you knock this wall down the crack would stay put, 'cause the crack isn't in the wall.”

“Where is it, then?” Aila moves closer, curious.

“Everywhere. In everything. It's a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together, right here in the wall of Amelia's bedroom. Sometimes, can you hear...”

“A voice.” Amelia answers. “Yes”

After dumping a glass of water on the floor and pressing it to the crack to listen The Doctor mumbles. “Prisoner Zero..”

“Prisoner Zero has escaped.” Amelia finishes. “That's what I heard. What does it mean?”

“It means that, on the other side of this wall, there's a prison and they've lost a prisoner. And do you know what that means?”

“What?” Amy asks.

“You need a better wall.” He moves the stand away from the wall. “The only way to close the breach is to open it all the way. The forces will invert and it'll snap itself shut. Or..”

“Or what?” Aila wonders.

“You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?”

“Yes” Both Amy and Aila answers.

“Everything's going to be fine.” He reaches out and takes Amelia's hand who in turn reaches out and holds onto Aila's hand as he points his light thing at the wall and presses a button. The crack splits open to reveal what looks like a dark prison on the other side.

“Prisoner Zero has escaped.” Aila can hear it now, and she holds on to her bear a little tighter. “Prisoner Zero has escaped.”

“Hello?” The Doctor calls. “Hello!”

“What's that?” Both girls whisper at the same time as a giant eye appears in the crack. Suddenly a light shoots out into The Doctors pocket and the crack slams shut.

“There. You see, told you it would close. Good as new.”

“What was that thing? Was that Prisoner Zero?”

“No. I think that was Prisoner Zero's guard. Whatever it was it sent me a message. Psychic paper. Takes a lovely little message. Prisoner Zero has escaped. But why tell us? Unless...”

“Unless what?” Aila wonders.

“Unless Prisoner Zero escaped through here. But he couldn't have. We'd know.” The doctor suddenly rushes out of the room into the hall and looks around. “It's difficult. Brand-new me, nothing works yet. But there's something I'm missing in the corner of my eye.”

Outside chimes can be heard causing The Doctor to turn towards the sound.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” He rushed down the stairs and back outside with the girls following him. “I've got to get back in there. The engines are phasing. It's going to burn!”

“But...” Aila calls after him. “It's just a box! How can a box have engines?”

“It's not a box. It's a time machine.”

“What, a real one?” Amelia questions. “You've got a real time machine?”

“Not for much longer if I can't get her stabilized. Five-minute hop into the future should do it.”

“Can we come?” Aila smiles.

“Not safe in here, not yet. Five minutes. Give me five minutes. I'll be right back.”

“People always say that.” Amelia states.

“Am I people?” He asks. “Do I even look like people? Trust me. I'm the Doctor.”

And then he is gone. Both girls race upstairs packing suitcases, eager to travel through time.

So they wait in the garden as five minutes turns into and hour. And so on, until they fall asleep.

The next morning they both wake up in their beds and in serious trouble with their Aunt.

The raggedy Doctor is gone. Their aunt furious about her garden shed. And all they have left is the memory of a man they aren't even sure is real.

 

**12 Years Later.**

 

“So you're life ambition is to be a kissagram then?” Aila watches her sister get ready for work while she types on her computer.

“It's better than staying locked in this house all day, Aila. You can't do this, be this.”

“I'm not the one who bit four different psychologists.” She responds, rubbing her eyes and blinking at the screen.

“They said he wasn't real.” She shrugs. “It can't be a delusion if we both have it.”

“Or it could just be me being insane and dragging you down with me.” Aila tells her, frowning.

“You're not insane, Aila” Amy kneels down in front of her sister and places a hand on her cheek. “You're just having a hard time. It'll get better.”

“Two years is a long time for it to just be a hard time. You wouldn't feel the same if you were in my head. You weren't there. You were off with Rory.”

“You were only sixteen. Aunt Susan, should never have taken you for a driving lesson during a storm. The police even said it wasn't your fault. The roads where wet, the rain so hard you couldn't see. She shouldn't have taken you. We've been through this.”

The clock chimes behind her and she stands straightening her skirt.

“I have to go, take your meds please. I'll be back after my shift. Rory is going to check in on you after his shift ends and stay till I get home. You have my cell number.” She pats her sister on the head before turning and leaving.

As soon as her sister closes the front door, Aila climbs up the stairs and goes into her room. She closes the curtains, turns off the lights, and climbs into the bed, hugging her raggedy teddy bear with the bow-tie close.

“Oh, Doctor how I wish you would come back. Be one less voice that isn't real.” A few tears slip from her eyes as she closes them.

“Amelia! Aila!” A voice calls from outside. Aila sits straight up in bed, heart pounding and puts her hands over her ears.

“It's not real. He isn't real.” She whispers, sobbing.

“I worked out what is was. I know what I was missing!” The familiar voice is getting closer, louder. “You've got to get out of there!”

“Go away. Go away” She cries mumbling.

“Amelia? Aila? Are you all right? Are you there?” Footsteps up the stairs that she can't ignore anymore. So she grabs a book and slips silently to her door. She peeks out and sure enough he is there. The Doctor. So she does the only thing she can think of. She sneaks up behind him and hits him over the head with the book knocking him unconscious. Then she goes into her sisters room and steals a pair of her handcuffs, before attaching the man to the radiator. And finally she calls her sister.

“Amy” Aila whispers into the phone shakily.

“Aila, I've only been gone five minutes. What's wrong?”

“He's here. He's here Amy, and I sort of panicked and hit him in the head with a book and now he's knocked out and handcuffed to the radiator in the hall and what do I do.”

“Who's there?”

“The Doctor.”

“I'll be right there.” And sure enough she is.

“What do we do?” Aila whispers as he starts waking up.

“Be quiet, go downstairs, I'll handle it.”

Aila goes half way down the stairs before stopping so she can watch what happens without being seen.

Amy pulls her fake radio out of her police get up and begins talking. “White male, mid-twenties, breaking and entering. Send me some backup, I've got him restrained. Oi, you! Sit still.”

“Was that a book? Who hits people with a book?”

“You were breaking and entering.”

He tries to stand up and is immediately pulled back down by the handcuffs.

“That's much better. Brand-new me, whack on the head. Just what it needed.”

“Do you want to shut up now? I've got backup on the way.” Amy says.

“Hang on. No, wait, you're a policewoman.”

“And you're breaking and entering. You see how this works?”

“What are you doing here? Where are the little girls who live here? Where are Amelia and Aila Pond? I promised them five minutes, but the engines were phasing I suppose I must have gone a bit far. Has something happened to them?”

“The Ponds haven't lived here in a long time.”

Aila is taken aback a bit. Why would Amy lie?

“How long?”

“Six months.”

“No! No, no, no! I can't be six months late! I said five minutes. I promised.”

Amy turns away pressing a button on her pretend radio.

“What happened to them? What happened to Amelia and Aila Pond?” The doctor demands.

“Sarge, it's me again. Hurry it up. This guy knows something about the Ponds.”

“I need to speak to whoever lives in this house right now.”

“I do” Aila climbs up the stairs “Sorry about the book”

“I live here too.” Amy states giving Aila an annoyed looked. “And I told you to wait downstairs while I dealt with this.”

“But you're police and you are...”

“Just a girl. Nobody important.”

“Never met anyone who wasn't important.” The Doctor gives her a curious look.

“You have now.” She leans against the wall behind Amy. He looks the same. Exactly the same as he did all those years ago.

“How many rooms?” The Doctor asks turning back to Amy again.

“I'm sorry, what?”

“On this floor. How many rooms on this floor? Count them for me now.”

“Why?”

“Because it will change your life.”

“Five” Amy answers.

“Six” Aila states.

“No, there are only one two three four five...six. That is not possible. How's that possible?” Amy gives Aila a strange look.

“There's a perception filter all round the door. Sensed it last time I was here. Should've seen it.”

“But that's a whole room. That's a whole room we've never even noticed.” Amy argues.

“The filter stopped you from noticing. Something came here a while ago to hide. It's still hiding, and you need to uncuff me now!”

Amy ignores him and begins walking towards the room. Aila kneels down next to the doctor and tries to open the cuff.

“Where is the key and what are you doing?” Aila calls after Amy.

“I don't have the key I lost it.” Amy answers still moving closer to the door.

“How can you have lost it? Stay away from that door! Do not touch that door! Listen to me! Do not open that… “ Amy turns the knob ignoring him. “Why does no one ever listen to me? Do I just have a face that nobody listens to? Again?”

“It's not you. She never listens to anyone.” Aila pulls a safety pin out of her pocket and uses it to try and break the lock on the handcuffs but it doesn't work.

“It's okay I have...” He digs in his pockets. “My screwdriver, where is it? Silver thing blue at the end. Where did it go?”

“There's nothing here.” Any calls from the room

“Whatever's in there stopped you from seeing the whole room. What makes you think you could see it? Now, please, just get out!”

“Silver, blue at the end?” She calls.

“My screwdriver, yeah.”

“It's here.”

“Must have rolled under the door.”

“Yeah. Must have. And then it must have jumped up on the table.”

“Get out of there. Get out of there!”

Aila stands meaning to go after Amy but the doctor grabs her hand.

“Oh no you don't, you're not going in there too.” He tells her.

“Let go of me.”

“No” He pulls her down and she tumbles into his side where he keeps an arm wrapped firmly around her waist. “Get out! Get out of there! What is it? What are you doing?”

“There's nothing here, but...”

“Corner of your eye.”

“What is it?”

“Don't try to see it. If it knows you've seen it, it will kill you. Don't look at it. Do not look.”

Amy screams and Aila struggles trying to get free from the doctors arm.

“Get out!” He yells. “And you stop it”

Amy runs out of the room shutting the door behind her. The doctor lets go of Aila and she scrambles to her feet.

“What is it?”

“I don't know” She tossed the screwdriver to the doctor who points it at the door. Aila can hear the door locking as he points it at the handcuffs.

“Come on. What's the bad alien done to you?” He examines his screwdriver.

“Will that door hold?” Amy asks placing Aila behind her.

“Oh, yea, yea, course! It's an inter dimensional multi-form from outer space. They're all terrified of wood!”

“What's that? What's it doing?” Amy worries as a yellow glow emits around the door frame.

“I don't know. Getting dressed? Run. Just go. Your backup's coming, I'll be fine.”

“There is no backup.”

“I heard you on the radio. You called for backup.”

“I was pretending. It's a pretend radio.”

“But you're a policewoman.”

“I'm a kiss-o-gram!” Amy pulls her hat off just as the door falls down revealing a man and a dog. “But it's just...”

“No it isn't. Look at the faces.”

The creature growls like a dog but the sounds comes from the mans mouth instead of the dogs.

“What? I'm sorry, but what?” Amy asks.

“Oh, honestly. I have nightmares scarier than you. Also voice is a bit off.” Aila rolls her eyes.

The doctor looks up at her for a moment, an almost impressed expression on his face.

“I do not want to know what you dream about.” He tells her.

“You really don't”

“It's all one creature. One creature disguised as two. Clever old multi-form. A bit of a rush job, though. Got the voice a bit muddled as she said. Mind you, where did you get the pattern from? You'd need a psychic link, a live feed. How did you fix that?”

The man opens his mouth revealing several sharp teeth.

“Stay boy!” The doctor commands. We're safe. Want to know why? She sent for backup.”

“I didn't send for backup!”

“We know. It was a clever lie meant to save our lives but go on tell the alien we are all on our own why don't you?” Aila runs a hand through her hair.

“Well why don't you think of something?”

“So no backup. And that's why we're safe. Alone, we're not a threat to you. If we had backup, then you'd have to kill us.”

“Attention, Prisoner Zero. The human residence is surrounded. Attention Prisoner Zero”

“What's that?” Aila looks out the window but can't tell where the voice is coming from.

“That would be backup. Okay, one more time. We do have backup and that's definitely why we're safe.”

“Prison Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated.”

“Safe apart from, you know, incineration.”

“Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated.”

“Work, come on.” The doctor bangs his screwdriver on the floor as the message plays over and over again. Finally it lights up and he undoes the lock on the handcuffs. “Run!”

He stands up and the three of them bolt down the stairs together until they are outside.

“Kiss-o-gram?” The doctor asks using his screwdriver to lock the door.

“Yes, a kiss-o-gram! What's going on?”

“Why did you pretend to be a policewoman?”

“I was going to work, What's going on? Tell us!” Amy yells as the three take off running again.

“An alien convict is hiding out in your spare room, disguised as a man and a dog, and some other aliens are about to incinerate your house. Any questions?”

“Yes”

“Me, too.” He puts a key into his blue box. “No, no, no! Don't do that, not now! It's still rebuilding, not letting us in!”

They can still hear the announcement and the barking coming from the house as Amy pulls on the doctor's arm.

“Come on”

“No, wait, hang on, hang on, wait, wait, wait. The shed. I destroyed that shed last time I was here, smashed it to pieces.”

“So there’s a new one. Let's go” Amy encourages.

“Yeah, but the new one's got old. It's ten years old at least.” He leans against it sniffing then licks his finger. “Twelve years. I'm not six months late, I'm twelve years late.”

“He's coming.” Aila worries as the doctor looks between them.

“You said six months. Why did you say six months?”

“We've go to go.” Amy ignores the question.

“This matters. This is important. What did you say six months?”

“Well, why did you say five minutes?” Amy and Aila yell at the same time.

“What?” He whispers.

“Come on”

“What? What?” He takes a step back looking at both girls. Amy in her police outfit and Aila in a simple black dress with no shoes.

“Come on!” Amy yells grabbing his arm and pulling him behind her. “Oi, and grab her”

The doctor grabs Aila's hand as he passes and they are both led by Amy away from the house. Once they've gotten far enough down the road they all stop and the doctor turns to face them, his hand still wrapped around Aila's.

“You're them. You're Amelia and Aila.”

“You're late.” Amy states. “And you can let her go now.”

The doctor looks down at his hand releasing Aila as soon as he realizes that he hasn't.

“You were little girls.” He follows after Amelia as she turns to walk away. Aila however does not move.

“I'm Amelia and you are late.”

“What happened?”

“Twelve years.”

“You hit me with a book.”

“No that was… Aila” She turns around realizing she has left her sister behind and runs back to her. “Oh my god, you're outside. If I had known an alien monster would get you out of the house I should have found one a year and a half ago.”

“You haven't left your house in a year and a half?” The doctor asks.

“More like one year ten months a three days. I haven't left since I came home.”

“Home from where?”

“Crazy alien monster chasing us, can we do this later maybe?” Amy asks pulling them back into the current problem.

“Right” The doctor looks at her for an extra moment before turning back to Amy, but before he speaks they all look around realizing that the alien warning is coming from every speaker around them. He runs up to a random house and the three of them hurry inside.

“Hello! Sorry to burst in, we're doing a special on television faults in this area. Also, crimes.” The doctor announces as Amy and Aila stop behind him. “Let's have a look.”

“I was just about to phone. It's on every channel.” The older woman explains. “Hello, Amy dear. Are you a policewoman now?”

“Well, sometimes.”

“I thought you were a nurse.”

“I can be a nurse.”

“Or, actually, a nun?

“I dabble.”

"Amy, who are your friends?”

 “Who's Amy? You were Amelia. Also you don't know who she is?” The doctor gestures to Aila looking confused.

“Yeah, now I'm Amy. You remember my sister Aila right?”

“Oh dear, it's been such a long time since you've been around.I'd almost forgotten what you look like Aila.”

“Amelia Pond. That was a great name. At least your sister had enough since to leave her name alone.”

“Bit fairy tale.”

“I know you, don't I?” The older woman examines the doctor closely. “I've seen you somewhere before.”

“Not me. Brand-new face. First time on. And what sort of job's a kiss-o-gram?”

“I go to parties and I kiss people.” Amy answers. Aila bites her lip to stop from laughing. “With outfits. It's a laugh.”

"You were a little girl five minutes ago.”

 “You're worse than my aunt was.”

“I'm the doctor, I'm worse than everybody's aunt. And that is not how I'm introducing myself.” He picks up a radio pointing his screwdriver at it. The warning messages plays in several languages. “Okay, so it's everywhere, in every language. They're broadcasting to the whole world.”

He runs over to the window prying it open.

“What's out there? What are you looking for?” Aila watches him move around.

“Okay, planet this size, two poles, your basic molten core, they're going to need a forty percent fission blast. But they'll have to power up first, won't they?” A young man enters the house and the doctor just walks up to him and continues talking. “So assuming a medium-sized star ship, that's twenty minutes. What do you think? Twenty minutes? Yeah, twenty minutes. We've got twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes to what?”

“Are you the doctor?” The man asks.

“He is, isn't he? He's the Doctor! The Raggedy Doctor.” The older woman exclaims. “All those cartoons Amy did, when she was little. The Raggedy Doctor! It's him!”

“Shut up.” Amy mutters flushing red in embarrassment.

“Cartoons?” The Doctor looks at Amy amused.

“Gran, it's him isn't it? It's really him.”

“Jeff, shut up! Twenty minutes to what?” Amy turns to the Doctor who is now sitting on the sofa.

“The human resident. They're not talking about your house, they're talking about the planet. Somewhere up there, there's a spaceship, and it's going to incinerate the planet. Twenty minutes until the end of the world.”

The trio leave the house wandering down the street.

“What is this place? Where am I?” The Doctor looks around at his surroundings.

“Leadworth” Aila answers walking behind the Doctor and Amy.

“Is there an airport?”

“No”

“A nuclear power station?”

“No”

“Even a little one?”

“Nearest city?”

“Gloucester. Half an hour by car.”

“We don't have half an hour. Do we have a car?”

“No”

“Well, that's good. Fantastic, that is. Twenty minutes to save the world and I've got a post office. And it's shut.” He pauses looking at a tiny body of water surrounded by stones. “What is that?”

“It's a duck pond.” Amy answers

“Why aren't there any ducks?”

“I don't know. There's never any ducks.”

“Then how do you know it's a duck pond?”

“It just is. Is it important, the duck pond?

“I don't know. Why would I know? This is too soon. I'm not ready. I'm not done yet.” The Doctor clutches his chest as if in pain.

A black disc covers the sun, just like an eclipse.

“What's happening? Why is it going dark?” Amy shields her eyes trying to look up at the sun. “So what's wrong with the sun?

“Nothing. You're looking at it through a force field. They've sealed off your upper atmosphere. Now they're getting ready to boil the planet.” He straightens up as he speaks looking around. “Oh, and here they come. The human race. The end comes, as it was always going to, down a video phone.”

“This isn't real, is it? This is some kind of big wind up?”

“Or maybe you're just losing your mind.” Aila deadpans rolling her eyes.

“Why would I wind you up?” The Doctor looks at Aila while speaking to Amy. He's watching her carefully as someone looks at a puzzle as they work out a solution.

“You told us you had a time machine.”

“And you believed me.” He argues still watching Aila who is silently looking anywhere but at him.

“Then we grew up.”

“Oh, you never want to do that. No. Hang on. Shut up. Wait. I missed it. I saw it and I missed it. What did I see? I saw. What did I see? I saw, I saw, I saw.” The Doctor turns away from Aila and looks around at the people again. “Twenty minutes. I can do it. Twenty minutes, the planet burns. Run to your loved ones and say goodbye, or stay and help me.”

“Stay and help” Aila shrugs.

“No” Amy grabs Aila by the arm. “Absolutely not. Go back to Jeff's, stay there till I come for you.”

“I'm sorry?” The Doctor looks surprised.

“I said no.” She drags the Doctor with her free arm to a car that has just pulled up and then slams his tie in the door, before locking the car.

“Amy, what are you doing.” He tries desperately to free himself in vain. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Let him go” Aila reaches for the keys and Amy holds them away from her. “We have to do something.”

“No, who are you?” She spins to face the Doctor hand still wrapped firmly around Aila's wrist.

“You know who I am.”

“No, really. Who Are you?”

“End of the world, twenty minutes Amy. You are wasting time.” Aila tugs her arm but her sister only tightens her grip.

“He better talk quickly then.”

“Fish fingers and custard. Twelve years ago I sat in your kitchen and ate fish fingers and custard. I'm the Doctor. I'm a time traveler. Everything I told you twelve years ago is true. I'm real. What's happening in the sky is real, and if you don't let me go right now, everything you've ever known is over.

“I don't believe you.”

“Just twenty minutes. Just believe me for twenty minutes. She believes me.” He points to Aila. “Why can't you?”

“Fine, Twenty minutes. What do we do?” She unlocks the car and lets go of her sister's arm.

“Stop that nurse.” He takes off running into the crowd stopping at a man in scrubs and takes his phone from him.

“The sun's going out, and you're photographing a man and a dog. Why?”

“Amy?” Rory Williams eyes her oddly before turning to Aila. “Oi, Aila, you're here. Outside and well here.” He smiles warmly at her.

“Hi Rory. He's a friend.”

“Boyfriend” Rory corrects Amy.

“Kind of boyfriend.”

“Amy”

“Man and dog. Why?” The doctor asks.

“Oh my God, it's him.”

“Just answer his questions, please” Aila instructs.

“It's him, though. The Doctor. The Raggedy Doctor.”

“He came back.” Aila groans.

“But he was a story. He wasn't...”

“Man and dog. Why? Tell me now.” The Doctor sounds aggravated now.

“Sorry. Because he can't be there. Because he's...”

“In a hospital, in a coma.” The Doctor and Rory finish together.

“Yeah”

“Knew it. Multiform, you see? Disguise itself as anything, but it needs a life feed. A psychic link with a living but dormant mind.”

The man barks at them.

“Prisoner Zero”

“What there's a Prisoner Zero too?” Rory sounds confused.

“Yes” Aila and Amy speak at the same time.

An eyeball space ships comes down from above.

“See, that ship up there is scanning this area for non-terrestrial technology. And nothing says non-terrestrial like a sonic screwdriver.” The doctor makes all the streetlights explode, the car alarms go off and a poor woman's mobility scooter zoom off down the road. A fire engine goes past on its own, two tone blaring. “I think someone's going to notice, don't you?“ He blows up a red telephone box, then the screwdriver explodes. “No, no! No, don't do that!”

“Look it's going.” Rory stares up at the now leaving ship.

“No, come back. He's here! Come back! He's here. Prisoner Zero is here. Come back, he's here! Prisoner Zero is...”

The alien goes squishy and disappears down a drain cover.

“Doctor! The drain, It just sort of melted and went down the drain.”

“Well, of course it did.” The Doctor rubs his face in his hands.

“What do we do now?”

“It's hiding in human form. We need to drive it into the open. No Tardis, no screwdriver, seventeen minutes. Come on, think. Think!”

“That thing hid in our house for twelve years?” Aila questions. “No wonder I never felt alone there. Even when I was. Or wasn't”

“Multiforms can live for millennia. Twelve years is a pit-stop.”

“So how come you show up again on the same day that lot do? The same minute!”

“They're looking for him, but they followed me. They saw me through the crack, got a fix, they're only late because I am.”

“What's he on about?” Rory looks at each of them in turn.

“Nurse boy, give me your phone”

“How can he be real? He was never real.”

“Phone. Now. Give me.”

“He was just a game. We were kids. You made me dress up as him.” Rory stares at Amy wide eyed.

“These photos, they're are all coma patients?” The Doctor flicks through the images on the phone.

“Yeah.”

“No, they're all the multiform. Eight comas, eight disguises for Prisoner Zero.”

“He had a dog, though. There's a dog in a coma?” Amy asks.

“Well, the coma patient dreams he's walking a dog, Prisoner Zero gets a dog. Laptop! Your friend, what was his name? Not him, the good-looking one” The Doctor rambles on.

“Thanks.” Rory frowns.

“Jeff.” Amy responds.

“Oh, thanks.” Rory is annoyed now.

“He had a laptop in his bag. A laptop. Big bag, big laptop. I need Jeff's laptop. You two, get to the hospital. Get everyone out of that ward. Clear the whole floor. Phone me when you're done. Aila you're with me.”

Aila and the Doctor run up to Jeff's room in his house. He is lounging on his bed, using his laptop.  
  
“Hello. Laptop. Give me.” The Doctor tries to pry the computer from the man.

“No, no, no, no, wait.”

“It's fine. Give it here.”

“Hang on!”

The Doctor takes the laptop and sees what Jeff was browsing.

“Blimey. Get a girlfriend, Jeff.”

The door opens and Jeff's gran walks in.

“Gran.”

“What are you doing?” The older woman asks the Doctor.

“The sun's gone wibbly, so right now, somewhere out there, there's going to be a big old video conference call. All the experts in the world panicking at once, and do you know what they need? Me. Ah, and here they all are. All the big boys. NASA, Jodrell Bank, Tokyo Space Centre, Patrick Moore.” Aila can see him fiddling on the computer.

“I like Patrick Moore.” Jeff's gran remarks.

“I'll get you his number. But watch him, he's a devil.”

“You can't just hack in on a call like that.” Jeff warns.

“Can't I?”

After a long chat with some very powerful people, Aila and the Doctor leave the laptop with a slightly confused Jeff and head outside.

“Aila? Can I ask you something?” The Doctor leads her towards the sound of sirens.

“You can ask, no guarantees that I'll answer.” She follows as they reach the unmanned firetruck. He uses his screwdriver to turn the siren off temporarily.

“Why are your eyes so sad?” Rory's phone rings in his pocket. He pulls it out and listens. “Look in the mirror.”

He opens the door to the fire engine ushering her inside.

“Don't worry, I've commandeered a vehicle.” He speaks into the phone starting the engine and driving. Once he hangs up the phone he looks over at Aila again. “You didn't answer me.”

“I told you I wouldn't. Everybody has secrets.”

“I know that. It's just… last time I saw you, you were a little girl. A perfectly happen innocent little girl. And now you're all. You're eyes. They're wrong. They're like mine. Old eyes. Eyes that have seen too much.” His phone rings again as they get closer to the hospital.

“Are you in?”

He listens to the voice intently.

“You need to get out of there.” The hospital comes into view. “Amy? Amy, what's happening? Amy, talk to me!”

Aila can hear her sisters muffled voice but can't tell what she is saying.

“Which window are you?” A pause. “Which window?”

He hangs up the phone and uses his sonic screw driver on the steering wheel.

“Come along, Pond” He holds out his hand and they climb up onto the ladder just as it crashes through a window. “Right! Hello. Are we late? No, three minutes to go. So still time.”

Prisoner Zero, now a woman with two girls stares at the Doctor.

“Time for what, Time Lord?”

“Take the disguise off. They'll find you in a heartbeat. Nobody dies.

“The Atraxi will kill me this time. If I am to die, let there be fire.”

“Okay. You came to this world by opening a crack in space and time. Do it again. Just leave.”

“I did not open the crack.”

“Somebody did.”

“The cracks in the skin of the universe, don't you know where they came from? You don't do you?” Prisoner Zero changes voices. “The Doctor in the Tardis doesn't know. Doesn't know. Doesn't know!” It changes voices again. “The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall.”

“And we're off! Look at that. Look at that!” He turns to face the clock which now reads. 0:00. “Yeah, I know, just a clock. Whatever. But do you know what's happening right now? In one little bedroom, my team are working. Jeff and the world. And do you know what they're doing? They're spreading the word all over the world, quantum fast. The word is out. And do you know what the word is? The word is Zero. Now, me, if I was up in the sky in a battleship, monitoring all Earth communications, I'd probably take that as a hint. And if I had a whole battle fleet surrounding the planet, I'd be able track a simple old computer virus to its source in, what, under a minute? The source, by the way, is right here.” He waves Rory's phone in the air. “Oh! And I think they just found us!”

“The Atraxi are limited. While I'm in this form, they'll still be unable to detect me. They've tracked a phone, not me.”

“Yeah, but this is the good bit. I mean, this is my favorite bit. Do you know what this phone is full of? Pictures of you. Every form you've learned to take, right here. Ooo, and being uploaded about now. And the final score is, no Tardis, no screwdriver, two minutes to spare. Who da man?” He spins around smiling then stops. “Oh, I'm never saying that again. Fine.”

“Then I shall take a new form.”

“Oh, stop it. You know you can't. It takes months to form that kind of psychic link.

“And I've had years. Who shall I choose? Little Amelia Pond, waiting for her Raggedy Doctor. Or perhaps, Aila Pond. The girl with nothing to lose.” Prisoner Zero smiles and Amy collapses.

“No! Amy? You've got to hold on. Amy? Don't sleep You've got to stay awake please.” He drops down next to Amy as the woman turns into him. “Well, that's rubbish. Who's that supposed to be?”

“It's you.” Rory answers.

“Me? Is that what I look like?”

“You don't know?” Aila looks Prisoner Zero over closely.

“Busy day. Why me, though? You're linked with her. Why are you copying me?

A younger version of Amy appears holding the copy doctors hand and speaks.

“I'm not. Poor Amy Pond. Still such a child inside. Dreaming of the magic Doctor she knows will return and save them both. What a disappointment you've been.”

“No, she's dreaming about me because she can hear me. Amy, don't just hear me, listen. Remember the room, the room in your house you couldn't see. Remember you went inside. I tried to stop, but you did. You went in the room. You went inside. Amy, dream about what you saw.”

“No, No, No!” Prisoner Zero transforms into its original form.

“Well done, Prisoner Zero. A perfect impersonation of yourself.”

“Prisoner Zero is located. Prisoner Zero is restrained.”

“Silence, Doctor. Silence will fall.” Prisoner Zero disappears in a rush of wind.

“The sun. It's back to normal, right? That's, that's good, yeah? That means it's over.” Rory helps a now waking Amy to her feet. “Amy. Are you okay? Are you with us?”

“What happened?”

“He did it. The Doctor did it.” Rory explains.

“No, I didn't.”

“What are you doing?”

“Tracking the signal back. Sorry in advance.” He uses his screwdriver on the phone.

“About what?”

“The bill” He lifts the phone up to his ear. “Oi, I didn't say you could go! Article fifty seven of the Shadow Proclamation. This is a fully established level five planet, and you were going to burn it? What? Did you think no-one was watching? You lot, back here, now. Okay, now I've done it.”

“Did he just bring them back? Did he just save the world from aliens and then bring all the aliens back again?”

The Doctor goes out into the corridor and they all follow him.

“Where are you going?”

“The roof. No, hang on.” He turns into a locker room and begins rummaging through the clothes.

“What's in here?”

“I'm saving the world. I need a decent shirt. To hell with the raggedy. Time to put on a show.”

“You just summoned aliens back to Earth. Actual aliens, deadly aliens, aliens of death, and now you're taking off your clothes.”

“Turn your back if it embarrasses you.”

“Are you stealing clothes now? Those clothes belong to people, you know.” Rory asks. “Oi, Are you two not going to turn your backs.”

“Nope” Both Aila and Amy answers admiring the view.  
  
When they walk out onto the roof, the Doctor is in a new shirt with several ties draped around his neck. The Atraxi is hovering overhead.

“So this was a good idea, was it? They were leaving.”

“Leaving is good. Never coming back is better, Come on, then! The Doctor will see you now.”

The eyeball scans the Doctor.

“You are not of this world.”

“No, but I've put a lot of work into it.” He looks at his selection of ties. “Oh, hmm, I don't know. What do you think?”

“Is this world important?”

“Important? What's that mean, important? Six billion people live here. Is that important? Here's a better question. Is this world a threat to the Atraxi? Well, come on. You're monitoring the whole planet. Is this world a threat?”

“No”

“Are the people of this world guilty of any crime by the laws of the Atraxi?”

“No”

“Okay. One more. Just one. Is this world protected? Because you're not the first to come here. Oh, there have been so many. And what you've got to ask is what happened to them?” He smirks straightening his bow tie. “Hello. I'm the Doctor. Basically, run.”

The eyeball zooms back to its ship and leaves, very fast.

“Is that it? Is that them gone for good? Who were they?” Amy asks but the doctor is already down the stairs and running out of the hospital. By the time Amy, Aila, and Rory reach the garden the Tardis is fading away.

**Two Year Later**

Aila is sitting on her bed. Arms wrapped around her legs. Humming quietly to herself, fresh tears on her cheeks.

“One more day.” She whispers. “Hang on, just one more day. Then it's over. It's all over.”

Outside suddenly, she hears a familiar whooshing noise.

She makes it to the door at the same time as Amy who is in her nightgown.

“You're still in your clothes. It's late.”

“I fell asleep in them.” She lies as they walk into the garden to see the doctor smiling right outside his Tardis.

“Sorry about running off earlier. Brand new Tardis. Bit exciting. Just had a quick hop to the moon and back to run her in. She's ready for the big stuff now.

“It's you” Amy looks him up and down.

“You're back.” Aila finishes.

“Course I cam back. I always come back. Something wrong with that?”

“You kept the clothes?”

“Well. I just saved the world. The whole planet, for about the millionth time, no charge. Yeah, shoot me. I kept the clothes.”

“Including the bow tie” Aila smiles, the action feel unnatural. She hasn't smiled since the last time this man stood in front of her.

“Yea, it's cool. Bow ties are cool.”

“Are you from another planet?” Amy asks.

“Yeah”

“Okay”

“So what do you think?”

“Of what?” Aila questions.

“Other planets. Want to check some out?”

“What does that mean?” Amy and Aila asks together.

“It means. Well, it means come with me.”

“Where?” Aila wonders.

“Wherever you like?”  
  
“All that stuff that happened. The hospital, the spaceships, Prisoner Zero.” Amy begins.

“Oh, don't worry, that's just the beginning. There's loads more.”

“Yeah, but those things, those amazing things, all that stuff. That was two years ago.” Amy is angry and annoyed by the end.

“Oh.! Oops.”

“Yeah.” Aila says.

“So that's?”

“Fourteen years!” Amy yells.

“Fourteen years since fish custard. Amy and Aila Pond, the girls who waited, you've both waited long enough.”

“When we were kids, you said there was a swimming pool and a library, and the swimming pool was in the library.” Aila remembers.

“Yeah. Not sure where it's got to now. It'll turn up. So, coming?”

“No.” Amy states. Aila who has remained silent since remarking on the Doctors bow tie stares at the box for a long time, but doesn't say anything.

“You wanted to come fourteen years ago.”

“I grew up.”

“Don't worry. I'll soon fix that.” He opens the Tardis and Amy wanders inside. “Aila?”

“I don't, I ...”

“Oi, come along Pond.” He holds his hand out. “Do you have something better to do?”

“Not tonight” She whispers more to herself than to him but he still gives her an odd look as she takes hold of his hand.

Once inside he leads Aila to the console where he begins pressing buttons and pulling levers with one hand. Instead of just letting go of Aila's hand, he just pulls her along with him as he goes.

“Well? Anything you want to say? Any passing remarks? I've heard them all.”

“I'm in my nightie.” Amy worries. “At least Aila fell asleep in her clothes.”

“Oh, don't worry. Plenty of clothes in the wardrobe. And possibly a swimming pool. So, all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will Where do you want to start?”

“You are so sure that I'm coming.”

“She's coming. I assume you aren't just going to let me run off with your little sister.”  
  
“Fine, can you get us back for tomorrow morning?”

“It's a time machine. I can get you both back five minutes ago. Why, what's tomorrow?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Just you know, stuff.”

“All right, then. Back in time for stuff.” A new sonic screwdriver rises from a slot in the console. “Oh! A new one! Lovely. Thanks, dear.”

“Why us?”

“Why not?”

“No, seriously. You are asking us to run away with you in the middle of the night. It's a fair question. Why us?”

“I don't know. Fun. Do I have to have a reason?”

“People always have a reason.”

“Do I look like people?”

“Yes.”

“Been knocking around on my own for a while. My choice, but I've started talking to myself all the time. It's giving me earache.”

“You're lonely. That's it? Just that?”

“Just that. Promise.”

“Okay.”

“So, are you okay, then? Because this place, sometimes it can make people feel a bit, you know.” He looks to both of them.

“I'm fine. It's just, there's a whole world in here, just like you said. It's all true. I thought. Well, I started to think that maybe you were just like a madman with a box.” Aila tells him.

“Ponds, there's something you'd both better understand about me, because it's important, and one day both your lives may depend on it. I am definitely a madman with a box. Ha ha! Yeah. Goodbye Leadworth, hello everything.”  
  


 

 


	2. The Beast Below

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Doctor Who or any of the plots that I borrow.

Aila sits on the floor of the Tardis, bare feet hanging out the door into space. The Doctor stands next to her, holding onto Amy as she floats outside of the Tardis.

“Come on, Pond.” He pulls Amy back inside so that she is standing behind her sister looking out. “Now do you believe me?”

“Okay, your box is a spaceship. It's really a spaceship. We are in space! How are we breathing?” Amy smiles excitedly.

“I've extended the air shell. We're fine.” He speaks looking below him as Aila stands to look down as well. “Now that's interesting. Twenty ninth century. Solar flares roast the Earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves. Whole nations.” He runs to his console, the doors closing.“Migrating to the stars, Isn't that amazing?”

“Sure is.” Aila agrees.

“I've found us a spaceship. This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That’s a whole country, living and laughing and shopping. Searching the stars for a new home.”

“Can we go out and see?” Amy asks.

“Course we can. But first, there's a thing.”

“A thing?”

“An important thing. In fact, Thing One. We are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets.” He flips on his scanner and watches a little girl sitting and crying. “Ooo, that's interesting.”

“So we're like a wildlife documentary, yeah? Because if they see a wounded little cub or something, they can't just save it, they've got to keep filming and let it die. It's got to be hard. I don't think I could do that. Don't you find that hard, being all, like, detached an cold?” Amy rambles on while Aila watches the Doctor slip out the door.

“Amy he's gone outside.” Aila points to the Doctor bumping into the weeping girl.”

“Doctor?” Amy asks.

On the screen he gestures for them to join him.

“I'm in the future. Like hundreds of years in the future. I've been dead for centuries.” Amy observes once they leave the Tardis.

“Oh, lovely. You're a cheery one. Never mind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?”

“What's wrong?” Amy spins around trying to figure it out.

“Come on, use your eyes. Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?”

“Is it the bicycles? Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles.”

“Says the girl in the nightie.” Aila laughs rolling her eyes.

“Oh my God, I'm in my nightie.”

“Now, come on, look around you. Actually look.” He waves his arms around. “Life on a giant star ship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state. Excuse me.” He takes a pint glass of water from a table, setting it on the floor. He looks at it for a moment then returns it to the table.

“What are you doing?” The man at the table questions.

“Sorry. Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish. Where was I?”

“Why did you just do that with the water?”

“Don't know. I think a lot. It's hard to keep track. Now, police state. Do you see it yet?” He wander towards some benches.  
“Where?”

“There.” He points to the crying girl, all alone and sits on a bench near by. Both Aila and Amy join him.

“One little girl crying. So?” Amy wonders.

“Crying silently. I mean, children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt of afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that.”

“Are you a parent, Doctor?” Aila studies his face, for a moment he looks sad.

“Sad eyes?” He mutters.

“Point.” She consents.

“Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state.” He continues watching the little girl get into a lift.

“Where'd she go?” Amy looks at the spot where the girl was once sitting.

“Deck two oh seven. Apple Sesame block, dwelling 54A. You're looking for Mandy Tanner. Oh, er, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her. Took me four goes. Ask her about those things. The smiling fellows in the booths. They're everywhere.” He holds up a colorful wallet handing it to Amy.

“But they're just things.”

“They're clean. Everything else here is all battered and filthy. Look at this place. But no one's laid a finger on those booths. Not a footprint within two feet of them. Look. Ask Mandy, why are people scared of the things in the booths?”

“No, hang on. What do I do? I don't know what I'm doing here and I'm not even dressed. Why me, and not her?” She points at Aila.

“It's this or Leadworth. And you, well just 'cause. What do you think? Let's see. What will Amy Pond choose? Ha ha, gotcha. Meet us back here in half an hour.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I always do. Stay out of trouble. Badly.”

“So is this how it works, Doctor? You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there's children crying?”

“Yes.”

Aila watches her sister climb into the lift.

“Where to now, Doctor?”

“Engine room, come along Pond.” He wraps his hand around hers leading her through the ship. They climb down a ladder after awhile. The Doctor feeling the walls. “Can't be.”

“What is it?”

He scans the walls with his screwdriver. Then lays on the floor to examine a glass of water. Aila watches a woman in a mask walk up to them.

“Um, Doctor?” He looks up and sees the woman.

“The impossible truth in a glass of water. Not many people see it. But you do, don't you, Doctor?”

“You know me?” He stands up.

“Keep your voice down. They're everywhere. Tell me what you see in the glass.”

“Who says I see anything?”

“Don't waste time. At the marketplace, you placed a glass of water on the floor, looked at it, then came straight here to the engine room. Why?”

“No engine vibration on deck. Ship this size, engine this big, you'd feel it. The water would move. So, I thought I'd take a look. It doesn't make sense. These power couplings, they're not connected. Look. Look, they're dummies, see? And behind this wall, nothing. It's hollow. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was” He opens a panel examining the contents. ”There's no engine at all. But it's working. This ship is traveling through space. I saw it.”

“The impossible truth, Doctor. We're traveling among the stars in a spaceship that could never fly.”

“How?”

“I don't know. There's a darkness at the heart of this nation. It threatens every one of us. Help us, Doctor. You're our only hope. Your friend is safe. This will take you to her. Now go, quickly!” The woman hands a tracking device to the Doctor. Then turns to leave.

“Who are you? How do I find you again?”

“I am Liz Ten, and I will find you.”

Aila and the Doctor follow the tracking devices map through the ship.

“Why did you send Amy and not me?” Aila stops suddenly. “You keep me with you all the time. But Amy you send off on her own.”

“We need to find Amy” He keeps walking until he realizes that she is no longer following. “Come along Pond.”

“No”

“Aila” He steps back to her. “I don't know. There's something. I don't, I can't. A feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“I can't explain it. Just trust me. Please. For now. Just trust me and come with me please.”

“Fine” She steps around him pulling the tracker from him and starts following the map. The Doctor follows her silently until they come across the little girl sitting on a bench outside a room.

The door to the room opens and Amy is standing inside staring at the screen.

“Amy?” The Doctor questions as he steps inside. Aila joins him just as Amy presses a button then turning to them. “What have you done?”

The Doctor scans a device in the ceiling.

“Yeah, your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes.”

“But why would I choose to forget?”

“Because everyone does. Everyone chooses the Forget button.” The girls stands in the doorway.

“Did you?”

“I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to the see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years”

“And once every five years, everyone chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action.”

“How do you not know about this? Are you Scottish too?”

“Oh, I'm way worse than Scottish. I can't even see the movie. Won't play for me.”

“It played for me.”

“The difference being the computer doesn't accept me as human.”

“Why not? You look human.” Aila asks.

“No, you look Time Lord. We came first.” He explains.

“So there are other Time Lords, yeah?” Amy looks him up and down watching.

“No. There were, but there aren't. Just me now. Long story. There was a bad day. Bad stuff happened. And you know what? I'd love to forget it all, every last bit of it, but I don't. Not ever. Because this is what I do, every time, every day, every second. This. Hold tight. We're bringing down the government.” He presses the Protest button. The door slams shut trapping the Doctor, Amy, and Aila inside. The smiling face starts scowling and the floor begins to open up, revealing a long drop.

“Say whee” Th Doctor smiles, wrapping and arm around Aila and grabbing Amy's hand. Both girls scream as they fall.

The group falls into what appears to be organic waste.

“High speed air cannon. Lousy way to travel.” The Doctor stands pulling Aila up to her feet and checking her for injuries. “Okay Ponds?”

“Where are we?” Amy looks around her face a bit green.

“Six hundred feet down, twenty miles laterally, puts us at the heart of the ship. I'd say Lancashire. What's this then, a cave? Can't be a cave. Looks like a cave.”

“It's a rubbish dump, and it's minging!” Amy smells her own hair and looks disgusted.

“Yes, but only food refuse. Organic, coming through feeder tubes from all over the ship.”

“The floor's all squidgy, like a water bed.” Aila observes.

“But feeding what, though?”

“It's sort of rubbery, feel it. Wet and slimy.” In the distance an animal noise can be heard.

“Er, it's not a floor, it's a. So.” The Doctor looks a bit worried. Aila realizes that he has been keeping a hand on her arm this whole time.

“It's a what?” Amy looks horrified.

“The next word is kind of a scary word. You probably want to take a moment, get yourself in a calm place. Go omm.” He instructs.

“Omm.”

“It's a tongue.”

“A tongue?”

“A tongue. A great big tongue.”

“This is a mouth. This whole place is a mouth? We're in a mouth?”

“Interesting” Aila steps away from the Doctor, just out of reach.

“Yes, yes, yes. But on the plus side, roomy.”

“How do we get out?”

“How big is this beastie? It's gorgeous. Blimey, if this is just the mouth, I'd love to see the stomach. Though not right now.”

“Doctor, how do we get out?” Amy repeats coming to stand next to her sister.

“Okay, it's being fed through surgically implanted feeder tubes, so the normal entrance is closed for business.” He points to a wall of big teeth.

“We could try, though.” Amy takes a step.

“No, stop, don't move.” The floor vibrates. “Too late. It's started.”

“What has?” Amy grabs Aila's hand.

“Swallow reflex.” He pulls out his screwdriver pointing it into the darkness.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm vibrating the chemo-receptors.”

“Chemo-what?”

“The eject button.”

“How does a mouth have an eject button?”

“Think about it!” A wave of vomit approaches. “Right, then. This isn't going to be big on dignity.” He grabs hold of Aila's other hand. “Geronimo!”

They end up in what appears to be a pipe, covered in sick.

“There's nothing broken, there's no sign of concussion and yes, you are covered in sick.” He scans Amy then turns to Aila. “Same for you.”

“Where are we?”

“Overspill pipe, at a guess.”

“Oh, God, it stinks.” Amy rubs her nose.

“Oh, that's not the pipe.” The Doctor explains.

“Oh. Phew. Can we get out?”

“One door, one door switch, one condition. We forget everything we saw. Look familiar?” He points at the Forget button next to the door. “That's the carrot. Ooo, here's the stick.” Two booths with the faces light up. “There's a creature living in the heart of this ship. What's it doing here?” The faces begin to frown. “No, that's not going to work on me, so come on. Big old beast below decks, and everyone who protests gets shoved down its throat. That how it works? The frowning faces begin scowling. “Oh, stop it. I'm not leaving and I'm not forgetting, and what are you fellows going to do about it? Stick out your tongues, huh?” The booths open and the faces step out.

“Doctor?” Amy backs up a little.

The door opens and Liz steps up between the group and shoots the faces.

“Look who it is. You look a lot better without your mask.”

“You must be Amy. Liz. Liz Ten.” She sticks out her hand. “Oh and you, didn't catch your name last time.” Liz shakes Amy's hand then turns to Aila.

“I'm Aila.”

“Lovely hair, both of you. Shame about the sick. You know Mandy, yeah? She's very brave.”

“How did you find us?” The Doctor smiles at her.

“Stuck my gizmo on you. Been listening in. Nice moves on the hurl escape. So, what's the big fella doing here?”

“You're over sixteen, you've voted. Whatever this is, you've chosen to forget about it.”

“No. Never forgot, never voted, not technically a British subject.”

“Then who and what are you, and how do you know me?”

“You're a bit hard to miss, love. Mysterious stranger, M O consistent with higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot. I've been brought up on the stories. My whole family was.”

“Your family?”

“They're repairing. Doesn't take them long. Let's move.” She points at the now twitching Smilers and leads the group out the door, through the ship.

“The Doctor. Old drinking buddy of Henry Twelve. Tea and scones with Liz Two. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you, weren't she? Knighted and exiled you on the same day. And so much for the Virgin Queen, you bad, bad boy.”

“Liz Ten.” The Doctor looks like he has suddenly realized something.

“Liz Ten, yeah. Elizabeth the Tenth. And down!” The group ducks and she shoots behind them at the Smilers that are following them. “I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule.” They walk past grating with tentacles beating against it. “Any idea?”

“Doctor, I saw one of these up top. There was a hole in the road, like it had burst through like a root.” Amy points out.

“Exactly like a root. It's all one creature, the same one we were inside, reaching out. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship.”

“What, like an infestation? Someone's helping it. Feeding it. Feeding my subjects to it. Come on. Got to keep moving.”

She leads them to her quarters, where Amy, Aila, and the Doctor manages to clean up a bit.

“Why all the glasses?” The Doctor, examines the glasses on the floor.

“To remind me every single day that my government is up to something, and it's my duty to find out what.”

“A queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom?”

“Secrets are being kept from me. I don't have a choice. Ten years I've been at this. My entire reign. And you've achieved more in one afternoon.”

“How old were you when you came to the throne?”

“Forty. Why?”

“What, you're fifty now? No way.” Amy exclaims.

“Yeah, they slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps.”

“And you always wear this in public?” He holds up the queen's mask.

“Undercover's not easy when you're me. The autographs, the bunting.”

“Air-balanced porcelain. Stays on by itself, because it's perfectly sculpted to your face.”

“Yeah? So what?”

“Oh, Liz. So everything.”

A group of men in black cloaks arrive.

“What are you doing? How dare you come in here?”

“Ma'am, you have expressed interest in the interior workings of Starship UK. You will come with us now.” The man instructs.

“Why would I do that?”

The man's head turns into one of the scowling faces.

“How can they be Smilers?” Amy wanders.

“Half Smiler, half human.” The Doctor explains.

“Whatever you creatures are, I am still your queen. On whose authority is this done?”

“The highest authority, Ma'am.”

“I am the highest authority.”

“Yes, ma'am. You must go now, Ma'am.”

“Where?”

“The Tower, Ma'am.”

Once in the Tower, tentacles can be seen banging against grating.

“Doctor, where are we?” Amy asks.

“The lowest point of Starship UK. The dungeon.”

“Ma'am.” A man greets them as they enter.

“Hawthorne. So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do.”

“There's children down here. What's all that about?” The Doctor points to the group of children wandering around.

“Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast. For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. You're very lucky.” Hawthorne tells them.

“Yeah, look at us. Torture chamber of the Tower of London. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Except it's not a torture chamber, is it? Well, except it is. Except it isn't. Depends on your angle.” He points to the top of a pulsating brain is visible in the middle of the room, with giant electrodes pointing down at it.  
“What's that?” Liz demands.

“Well, like I say, it depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain center of big fella's brain, being tortured relentlessly.”

“Or?”

“Or it's the gas pedal, the accelerator. Starship UK's go faster button.”

“I don't understand.” Liz looks around at everything in the room.

  
“Don't you? Try to. Go on. The spaceship that could never fly. No vibration on deck. This creature, this poor, trapped, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading, it's what you have instead of an engine. And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep it moving. Tell you what. Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear.” He points his screwdriver at one of the tentacles. They can now all hear a screaming sound.  
“Stop it. Who did this?” Liz speaks, her voice full of anger.

“We act on instructions from the highest authority.” Hawthorne tells her.

“I am the highest authority. The creature will be released, now. I said now! Is anyone listening to me?”

“Liz. Your mask.” The Doctor tosses it to her.

“What about my mask?”

“Look at it. It's old. At least two hundred years old, I'd say.”  
“Yeah? It's an antique. So?”

“Yeah, an antique made by craftsmen over two hundred years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face. They slowed your body clock, all right, but you're not fifty. Nearer three hundred. And it's been a long old reign.”

“Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years.”

“Ten years. And the same ten years, over and over again, always leading you here.” He grabs her by the arm leading her to a screen with two buttons. One says Forget the other Abdicate.  
“What have you done?” She turns back to Hawthorne.

“Only what you have ordered. We work for you, Ma'am. The Winders, the Smilers, all of us.”

The screen turns on, the face of Liz appears.

“If you are watching this. If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower Of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale. Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travelers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind. And what we have done to it breaks my heart. The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the Forget button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope I keep the strength to make the right decision.”

“I voted for this. Why would I do that?” Amy looks at the Doctor.

“Because you knew if we stayed here, I'd be faced with an impossible choice. Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. And that was wrong. You don't ever decide what I need to know.”

“I don't even remember doing it.”

“You did it. That's what counts.” He's angry.

Aila wanders over to brain, watching the electrical pulse hit it.

“I'm, I'm sorry.” Amy frowns.

“Oh, I don't care. When I'm done here, you're going home.” He points at her, and she backs up instinctively.

“Why? Because I made a mistake? One mistake? I don't even remember doing it. Doctor!”

“Yeah, I know. You're only human.” The Doctor accuses. Aila turns, looking at the man. The comment hurts. Even though it isn't directed at her.

“What are you doing?” Liz asks as the Doctor begins messing with a machine.

“The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it.”

“That'll be like killing it.”

“Look, three options. One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name, because I won't be the Doctor any more.”

“There must be something we can do, some other way.” Liz argues.

“Nobody talk to me. Nobody human has anything to say to me today!”

Amy and Mandy sit against a wall while the Doctor works. Children enter the room. Mandy recognizes one and jumps up.

“Timmy! You made it, you're okay. It's me, Mandy.” A tentacle comes up behind Mandy and taps her on the shoulder. Mandy spins then pets it, smiling.

“Oi!” Aila moves to Liz and grabs her arm. “Sorry, your Majesty. Going to need a hand.” She drags her to the buttons pressing the queen's hand down on the Abdicate button.

“What have you done?” Amy jumps up, staring at her in horror.

“Think about it, Amy”

“Oi, that's brilliant.” Amy answers after a moment. “I should have thought of that.

“What have you done?” The Doctor stands in front of her demanding.

“She's done nothing at all. Am I right?” Amy tells him.

“We've increased speed.” Hawthorne says looking at a screen.

“Yeah, well, you've stopped torturing the pilot. Got to help.” Amy smiles.

“It's still here. I don't understand.” Liz looks between the two girls clearly lost.

“The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry. What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn't you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry.” Aila explains looking straight at the Doctor.

A little while later Amy and Aila join the Doctor on the observation deck.

“From Her Majesty. She says there will be no more secrets on Starship UK.” Amy hands the Doctor Liz's mask.

“Aila, you could have killed everyone on this ship.” The Doctor points out.  
“You could have killed a Star Whale.” She responds. “Couldn't let you do that.”

“And you saved it. I know, I know.”

“Amazing though, don't you think? The Star Whale. All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind.” Amy ponders.

“But you couldn't have known how it would react.” He tells Aila.

“You couldn't. But we've seen it before. Very old and very kind, and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?” Amy smiles up at him wrapping an arm around Aila. “Let's get out of here.”

They head back through the markets towards the Tardis.

“Shouldn't we say goodbye? Won't they wonder where we went?”

“For the rest of their lives. Oh, the songs they'll write. Never mind them. Big day tomorrow.”

“Sorry, what?” Amy stops a bit shocked.

“Well, it's always a big day tomorrow. We've got a time machine. I skip the little ones.”

“You know what I said about getting back for tomorrow morning? Have you ever run away from something because you were scared, or not ready, or just, just because you could?”

“Once, a long time ago.”

“What happened?”

“Hello.”

“Right. Doctor, there's something I haven't told you. No, hang on. Is that a phone ringing?” The three walk into the Tardis together. “People phone you?

“Well, it's a phone box. Would you mind?”

“Hello? Sorry, who? No, seriously, who? Says he's the Prime Minister. First the Queen, now the Prime Minister. Get about, don't you?”  
“Which Prime Minister?” The Doctor looks up from what he is doing.

“Er, which Prime Minister? The British one.”

“Which British one?”

“Which British one? Winston Churchill for you.” She hands the phone to the Doctor.

“Oh! Hello, What's up?” He listens for a moment. “We're on our way.”

  


 

 


	3. Victory of The Daleks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Doctor Who or any of the plots I borrow.

“Oi, please tell me this ship has showers and some clean clothes?” Amy looks down at her nightgown cringing.

“Right, come along Ponds.” He leads them from the control room. “Amy, your room.” He opens the door to a room, bunk beds against the wall. “Ooo, bunk beds. Very cool.”

Amy wanders inside looking around.

“Bunkbeds? Seriously? You realize that I am an adult right?”

“Bathroom door to your left. Closet door to your right.” He smiles, ignoring Amy's protest then turns, taking Aila by the hand. “Want to see your room?”

“Will there be bunk bed?” Aila asks as they leave Amy to shower and change.

“No idea, let's find out.” They turn down another hallway and he opens a door.

Inside, Aila is relieved to find that the bed inside is a normal one. Everything is the room is plain.

“Well that's boring.” He frowns, “You could have at least tried.” He talks to the ceiling as they step inside. “Doors are the same. Bathroom left. Closet right.”

“Thank you.” She steps inside, rubbing her temple.

“Alright Pond?” He looks concerned watching her.

“Yes, 'course.” She forces a smile, lying. Her head is throbbing. She's not even sure when is started. “Bit tired, definitely need a shower.”

“If you're sure. You don't have to come with us to see Churchill, you can stay on the Tardis if you like, get some rest.”

“No, I'm great. Besides, how many times in a girl's life will she get to hang out with Churchill?” She bites the inside of her cheek. “I should shower.”

“Right. See you soon, Pond.” He stares at her curiously for a moment before walking out the door.

Twenty minutes later. At least, Aila thinks it's twenty minutes later, she has showered and changed into a pair of jeans and a black tank top. After she has pulled a pair of black flats, she leaves the room wandering until she ends up back in the control room.

The Doctor is talking to himself, muttering, while pressing buttons and pulling levers.

“Oi, hello Ponds.” He smiles. Aila turns around noticing Amy standing next to her.

“Let's go see the Prime Minister, shall we?” The Doctor heads to the door and opens it walking out. Amy and Aila follow behind him. Outside armed men point guns out them and then they move aside to reveal Winston Churchill. “Amy, Aila? Winston Churchill.”

“Doctor. Is it you?”

“Oh, Winston, my old friend.”

Churchill holds out his hand and beckons at the Doctor.

“Ah, every time.” The Doctor smiles.

“What's he after?” Amy asks.

“Tardis key, of course.”

“Think of what I could achieve with your remarkable machine, Doctor. The lives that could be saved.”

“Ah, doesn't work like that.”

“Must I take it by force?”

“I'd like to see you try.”

“At ease.” Churchill signals the men and they lower their guns.

“You rang?” The Doctor follows Churchilll out into the corridor.

“So you've changed your face again.”

“Yeah, well, had a bit of work done.”

“Got it, got it, got it. Cabinet War Rooms, right?” Amy exclaims looking around her.

“Yep. Top secret heart of the War Office, right under London.”

“You're late, by the way.” Churchill says.

“Requisitions, sir.” A female brings him a paper to sign.

“Excellent.”

“Late?” The Doctor questions.

“I rang you a month ago.”

“Really? Sorry, sorry. It's a Type Forty Tardis, it's. I'm just running her in.”

“Something the matter, Breen? You look a little down in the dumps.” Churchill looks at the woman.

“No, sir. Fine, sir.”

“Action this day, Breen. Action this day.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excuse me, sir. Got another formation coming in, Prime Minister. Stukas, by the look of them.” A man walks up to them.

“We shall go up top then, Group Captain. We'll give them what for. Coming, Doctor?”

“Why?”

“I have something to show you.” He beckons them into a lift. “We stand at a crossroads, Doctor, quite alone, with out backs to the wall. Invasion is expected daily. So I will grasp with both hands anything that will give us an advantage over the Nazi menace.

“Such as?”

“Follow me” Churchill instructs. The group make their was onto the roof. There are sandbags piled all around and a white-coated scientist searching the skies with powerful binoculars.

“Wow” Amy looks around amazed.

“Doctor, this is Professor Edwin Bracewell. Head of our Ironsides Project.”  
“How do you do?”

A bomb lands nearby. Amy gazes at all the barrage balloons moored over the city.

“Oh, Doctor. Doctor, it's”

“History.”

“Ready, Bracewell?”

“Aye aye, sir. On my order, fire!”

Energy bolts zoom out from a sandbagged emplacement towards the approaching Nazi planes. Everyone a direct hit.

“What was that?” Aila looks up, surprised.

“That wasn't human. That was never human technology. That sounded like. Show me. Show me. Show me what that was!”

“Advance.”

“Our new secret weapon. Ha!”  
A machine rolls out from the emplacement. It's designation logo is a Union Flag and it is painted khaki, with an army utility belt around it.

“What do you think? Quite something, eh?”

“What are you doing here?” The Doctor looks angry again.

“I am your soldier.”

“What?”

“I am your soldier.”

“Stop this. Stop now. Now, you know who I am. You always know.”

“Your identity is unknown.”

“Perhaps I can clarify things here. This is one of my Ironsides. Bracewell tells the Doctor.“You will help the Allied cause in any way that you can.”

“Yes.” The machine answers.

“Until the Germans have been utterly smashed.”

“Yes.”

“And what is your ultimate aim?”

“To win the war.”

The Doctor looks unconvinced as they are led back to Churchill's office.

“They're Daleks. They're called Daleks.” He explains, furious.

“They are Bracewell's Ironsides, Doctor. Look. Blueprints, statistics, field tests, photographs. He invented them.” Churhill shows the papers to the Doctor.

“Invented them? Oh, no, no, no.”

“Yes. He approached one of our brass hats a few months ago. Fellow's a genius.”

“A Scottish genius, too. Maybe you should listen to...” Amy speaks but the Doctor cuts her off.

“Shush. He didn't invent them. They're alien.”

“Alien.” Churchill appears unconvinced. One glides past the door, looking in.

“And totally hostile.”

“Precisely. They will win me the war.” Churchill leads them out into the corridor again.

“Why won't you listen to me? Why did you call me in if you won't listen to me?”

“When I rang you a month ago, I must admit I had my doubts. The Ironsides seemed too good to be true.”

“Yes. Right. So destroy them. Exterminate them.” The Doctor pleads.

“But imagine what I could do with a hundred. A thousand.”

“I am imagining.” He worries. A Dalek goes past carrying a box. “Ponds, tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Aila give the Doctor a curious look.

“About the Daleks.”

“What would we know about the Daleks?” Amy has joined Aila in her confusion.

“Everything. They invaded your world, remember? Planets in the sky. You don't forget that. Tell me you two remember the Daleks.”

"No, sorry.” Both of the girls look at him with equally blank expressions.

“That's not possible.” He whispers as they move into a map room. “So they're up to something. But what is it? What are they after?”

“Well, let's just ask, shall we?” Amy makes her way over to one of the machines.

“Amy. Amelia!” The Doctor warns as Amy taps on the Dalek's shell.

“Can I be of assistance?” The Daleks asks.

“Oh. Yes, yes. See, my friend reckons you're dangerous. That you're an alien. Is it true?”

“I am your soldier.”

“Yeah. Got that bit. Love a squaddie. What else, though?”

“Please excuse me. I have duties to perform.”

“Winston. Winston, please.” The Doctor begs.

“We are waging total war, Doctor. Day after day the Luftwaffe pound this great city like an iron fist.”

“Wait till the Daleks get started.”

“Men, women and children slaughtered. Families torn apart. Wren's churches in flame.”

“Yeah. Try the Earth in flames.”

“I weep for my country. I weep for my empire. It is breaking my heart.”

“You're resisting, Winston. The whole world knows you're resisting. You're a beacon of hope.”

“But for how long? Millions of innocent lives will be saved if I use these Ironsides now.”

“Can I be of assistance?” The Dalek questions Aila as she moves closer to examine it.

“Shut it.” He pulls Aila away, placing her behind him. “Listen to me. Just listen. The Daleks have no conscience, no mercy, no pity. They are my oldest and deadliest enemy. You cannot trust them.”

“If Hitler invaded hell, I would give a favorable reference to the Devil. These machines are our salvation.” A siren sounds.“Oh, the All Clear. We are safe, for now.”

Churchill leaves, followed by a Dalek.  
  
“Doctor, it's the All Clear. You okay?” Aila puts a hand on his shoulder. He react, turning to look at her.

“What does hate look like, Aila?”

“Hate?”

“It looks like a Dalek. And I'm going to prove it.”

He leads them down to the laboratory where Bracewell is working with a Dalek.

“All right, Prof. Now, the Prime Minister's been filling me in. Amazing things, these Ironsides of yours. Amazing. You must be very proud of them.”

“Just doing my bit.”

“Not bad for a Paisley boy.” Amy sounds proud.

“Yes, I thought I detected a familiar cadence, my dear.”

“How did you do it? Come up with the idea?”

“How does the muse of invention come to anyone?”

“But you get a lot of these clever notions, do you?”

“Well, ideas just seem to teem from my head. Wonderful things, like. Let me show you. Some musings on the potential of hypersonic flight. Gravity bubbles that can sustain life outside of the terrestrial atmosphere. Came to me in the bath.” He shows the Doctor several papers.

“And are these your ideas or theirs?”

“Oh no, no, no. These robots are entirely under my control, Doctor. They are.”

The Dalek brings Bracewell some tea.

“Thank you. The perfect servant, and the perfect warrior.”

“I don't know what you're up to, Professor, but whatever they've promised, you cannot trust them. Call them what you like, the Daleks are death.” The Doctor warns.

“Yes, Doctor. Death to our enemies. Death to the forces of darkness, and death to the Third Reich.” Churchill enters.

“Yes, Winston, and death to everyone else too.”

“Would you care for some tea?” The Dalek approaches Aila. The Doctor comes up, placing himself between Aila and the Dalek, knocking the tray away from it.

“Stop this! What are you doing here? What do you want?” He demands.

“We seek only to help you.”

“To do what?”

“To win the war.”

“Really? Which war?”

“I do not understand.”

“This war, against the Nazis, or your war? The war against the rest of the Universe? The war against all life forms that are not Dalek?”

“I do not understand. I am your soldier.”

“Oh, yeah? Okay. Okay, soldier, defend yourself.” The Doctor picks up a metal tool and starts hitting the Dalek.

“What are you doing, Doctor?” Aila steps back, suddenly afraid.

“You do not require tea?”

”Stop him! Prime Minister, please.” Bracewell panics.

“Doctor, what the devil? Please, these machines are precious.” Churchill yells.

“Come on. Fight back. You want to, don't you? You know you do.” He just keeps hitting the machine.

“I must protest.” Bracewell interjects.

“What are you waiting for? Look, you hate me. You want to kill me. Well, go on. Kill me. Kill me!”

“Doctor, be careful.” Aila steps towards him again. Reaching out, stopping just short of touching him.

“Please desist from striking me. I am your soldier.”

“You are my enemy! And I am yours. You are everything I despise. The worst thing in all creation. I've defeated you time and time again. I've defeated you. I sent you back into the Void. I saved the whole of reality from you. I am the Doctor. And you are the Daleks.” He screams kicking the Dalek so it rolls backwards. Aila steps forward again, wrapping her hand around the Doctor's. He freezes, looking down at her hand then up at her face. He looks ashamed.

“Correct. Review testimony.” The Dalek rolls forward again just a bit.

“I am the Doctor. And you are the Daleks.” His voice echos from the Dalek.

“Testimony. What are you talking about, testimony?” The Doctor looks at the Dalek again.

“Transmitting testimony now.”

“Transmit what, where?”

“Testimony accepted.”

“Get back, all of you.” The Doctor pulls Aila behind him, but doesn't let go of her hand.

“Marines! Marines, get in here.” Churchill commands.

Two Marines come through the door, and are both killed instantly by the Dalek.

“Stop it, stop it, please. What are you doing? You are my Ironsides.” Bracewell begs.

“We are the Daleks.”

“But I created you.” Bracewell begs again.

“No.” The Dalek blows off Bracewell's left hand. It sparks and splutters. “We created you.”

Other Daleks come to stand behind the first. Together they chant.

“Victory. Victory. Victory.” They all dissapear.

“What just happened, Doctor?” Amy asks, her eyes watching the Doctor's hand still wrapped around Aila's.

“I wanted to know what they wanted. What their plan was. I was their plan.” The Doctor runs out pulling Aila behind him.

“Hey!” Amy yells after them as they head into the filing room back to the Tardis.

“Testimony accepted. That's what they said. My testimony.”

“Don't beat yourself up because you were right. So, what do we do? Is this what we do now? Chase after them?” Amy catches up to them.

“This is what I do. yeah, and it's dangerous, so you wait here.”

“Just me or Aila too, because if you're planning on leaving her you'll have to let go of her.” Amy says.

The Doctor looks down confused, as if he has forgotten that he is still holding onto Aila.

“You stat down here, with the Prime Minister.” He points at Amy. “And Aila stays in the Tardis. If something goes wrong, she'll be brought back to you, then the Tardis will get you both home. The Tardis will protect her. I need you here.”

“What, so you mean I've got to stay safe down here in the middle of the London Blitz?”

“Safe as it gets around me.” He pulls Aila into the Tardis and the door shuts behind him.

“Are you sure she'll be okay?”

“Yes, she'll be fine.” He begins moving around, doing things. “And she might be helpful there. With you inside the Tardis, if soemthing goes wrong it'll go into default settings. It'll pick up Amy, and take you both home.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Sit down” He places her in a chair. “And stay there no matter what.”

“But” She protest rising. As he comes back around he grabs he shoulders pushing her back down again. “Promise me that no matter what, you will not move from this spot until I walk through those doors again. Or your sister does. Promise me, Aila Pond.”

“No”

“Course not.” He sighs. “Try at least. Or lie. That would have been better.” He lets go and walks out the door. She waits exactly thirty second before following him out. He is holding up a jammy dodger waving it around.”Wait, wait, wait. I wouldn't if I were you. Tardis self-destruct, and you know what that means. My ship goes, you all go with it.” He catches sight of Aila, and steps back shielding her from the Daleks.

“You would not use such a device.”

“Try me.”

One of the Daleks moves forward.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. No scans. No nothing. One move and I'll destroy us all, you got that? Tardis bang bang, Daleks boom! Good boy. This ship's pretty beaten up. Running on empty, I'd say, like you. When we last met, you were at the end of your rope. Finished.” He warns. Aila isn't really sure what he is doing, then she remembers the whole mad man with a box thing.

“One ship survived”

“And you fell back through time, yes. Crippled, dying.”

“We picked up a trace. One of the Progenitor devices.”

“Progenitor? What's that when it's at home?”

“It is our past, and our future.”

“Oh? That's deep. That is deep for a Dalek. What does it mean, though?”

“It contains pure Dalek DNA. Thousands were created. All were lost, save one.”

“Okay, but there's still one thing I don't get, though. If you've got the Progenitor, why build Bracewell?”

“It was necessary.”

“But why? I get it. Oh, I get it. I get it. Oh ho! This is rich. The Progenitor wouldn't recognize you, would it? It saw you as impure. Your DNA is unrecognizable as Dalek.”

“A solution was devised.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Me. My testimony. So you set a trap. You knew that the Progenitor would recognize me, the Daleks' greatest enemy. It would accept my word. My recognition of you. No. No, no. What are you doing?”

Aila can't see what the Daleks have done from behind the Doctor.

“Withdraw now, Doctor, or the city dies in flames.”

“Who are you kidding? This ship is a wreck. You don't have the power to destroy London.”

“Watch as the humans destroy themselves.”

“Turn those lights off now. Turn London off or I swear I will use the Tardis self destruct.”

“Stalemate, Doctor. Leave us and return to Earth.”

“Oh, that's it. That's your great victory? You leave?”

“Extinction is not an option. We shall return to our own time and begin again.”

“No, no, no. I won't let you get away this time. I won't.”

“We have succeeded. DNA reconstruction is complete. Observe, Doctor, a new Dalek paradigm.”

Five brand new Daleks appear all different colors.  
“The Progenitor has fulfilled our new destiny. Behold, the restoration of the Daleks. The resurrection of the master race.”

“All hail the new Daleks. All hail the new Daleks.” The older Daleks chant.

“Yes, you are inferior.”

“Yes.”

“Then prepare.”

“We are ready.”

“Cleanse the unclean. Total obliteration. Disintegrate.” The new Daleks destroy the old ones.

“Blimey. What do you do to the ones who mess up?”

“You are the Doctor. You must be exterminated.”

“Don't mess with me, sweetheart.” The Doctor holds up the Jammy Dodger again.

“Drone, Eternal, and the Supreme.”

“Which would be you, I'm guessing. Well, you know, nice paint job.” He examines them, “Question is, what do we do now? Either you turn off your clever machine or I'll blow you and your new paradigm into eternity.”

“And yourself.” The Dalek pauses. “And your companion.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Scan reveals nothing. Tardis self destruct device non-existent.”

“All right, it's a Jammy Dodger, but I was promised tea.” He takes a bite out of it as an alarm sounds.

“Alert. Unidentified projectile approaching. Correction, multiple projectiles.”

“What have the humans done?”

”I don't know.”The Doctor shrugs.

“Explain. Explain. Explain.”

“Danny Boy to the Doctor. Danny Boy to the Doctor. Are you receiving me? Over.” A voice booms from overhead.

“Oh ho! Winston, you beauty.”

“Danny Boy to the Doctor. Come in. Over.”

“Loud and clear, Danny Boy. Big dish, side of the ship. Blow it up. Over.”

“Exterminate the Doctor.”

The Doctor grabs Aila's hand and they run into the Tardis..

“Danny Boy to the Doctor. Only me left now. Anything you can do, sir? Over.”

“The Doctor to Danny Boy. The Doctor to Danny Boy.I can disrupt the Dalek shields, but not for long. Over.”

“Danny Boy to the Doctor. Going in for another attack.”

“The Doctor to Danny Boy. The Doctor to Danny Boy. Destroy this ship. Over.”

“What about you, Doctor?”

“I'll be okay.”

The white Dalek appears on the screen.

“Doctor, call off your attack.”

“Ah ha. What, and let you scuttle off back to the future? No fear. This is the end for you. The final end.”

“Call off the attack, or we will destroy the Earth.”

“I'm not stupid, mate. You've just played your last card.”

“Bracewell is a bomb.”

“You're bluffing. Deception's second nature to you. There isn't a sincere bone in your body. There isn't a bone in your body.”

“His power is derived from an Oblivion Continuum. Call off your attack, or we will detonate the android.”

“No. This is my best chance ever. The last of the Daleks. I can rid the Universe of you, once and for all.”

“Then do it. But we will shatter the planet below. The Earth will die screaming.”

“Yeah, and if I let you go, you'll be stronger than ever. A new race of Daleks.”

“Then choose, Doctor. Destroy the Daleks or save the Earth. Begin countdown of Oblivion Continuum. Choose, Doctor. Choose. Choose.

“The Doctor to Danny Boy. The Doctor to Danny Boy. Withdraw.”

“Say again, sir. Over.”

“Withdraw. Return to Earth. Over and out.”

“But sir.”

“There's no time. You have to return to Earth now. Over.”

He slams his hand down on the console. Aila comes up next to him.

“Doctor.”

He moves away from her towards the door, stepping back out into the filing room, then he takes off running. Aila follows until she reaches the map room where the Doctor has punched Bracewell in the jaw, knocking him down.

“Doctor!” Amy shouts.

“Ow. Sorry, Professor, you're a bomb. An inconceivably massive Dalek bomb.”

“What?”

“There's an Oblivion Continuum inside you. A captured wormhole that provides perpetual power. Detonate that, and the Earth will bleed through into another dimension. Now keep down.” He uses his screwdriver to open Bracewell's torso. One of the five blue segments of a circle on Bracewell's torso turns yellow.

“Well?” Amy kneels down next to them.

“I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Never seen one up close before.”

“So what, they've wired him up to detonate?”

“Oh no, not wired him up. He is a bomb. Walking, talking, pow, exploding, the moment that flashes red.”

“There's a blue wire or something you have to cut, isn't there? There's always a blue wire. Or a red one.”

“You're not helping.”

“It's incredible. He talked to us about his memories. The Great War.” Churchill mutters.

“Someone else's stolen thoughts, implanted in a positronic brain. Tell me about it. Bracewell. Tell me about your life.”

“Doctor, I really don't think this is the time.”

“Tell me, and prove you're human. Tell me everything.”

“My family ran the Post Office. It's a little place just near the abbey, just by the ash trees. There used to be eight trees but there was a storm.”

“And your parents? Come on, tell me.”

“Good people. Kind people. They died. Scarlet fever.”

“What was that like? How did it feel? How did it make you feel, Edwin? Tell me. Tell me now.”

“It hurt. It hurt, Doctor, it hurt so badly. It was like a wound. I though it was worse than a wound. Like I'd been emptied out. There was nothing left.”

There are now two red, one yellow and two blue segments now.

“Good. Remember it now, Edwin. The ash trees by the Post Office and your mum and dad, and losing them, and men in the trenches you saw die. Remember it. Feel it. You feel it because you're human. You're not like them. You're not like the Daleks.”

“It hurts, Doctor. It hurts so much.”

“Good. Good, good, brilliant. Embrace it. That means you're alive. They cannot explode that bomb because you're a human being. You are flesh and blood. They cannot explode that bomb. Believe it. You are Professor Edwin Bracewell, and you, my friend, are a human being.” Now there are four red and one yellow. “It's not working. I can't stop it.”

“Hey, Paisley. Ever fancied someone you know you shouldn't?” Amy whispers leaning over him.

“What?”

“It hurts, doesn't it? But kind of a good hurt.”

“I really shouldn't talk about her.”

“Oh. There's a her.” The yellow segment turns back to blue.

“What was her name?”

“Dorabella.”

“Dorabella? It's a lovely name. It's a beautiful name. What was she like Edwin,?”  
“Oh, such a smile. And her eyes. Her eyes were so blue. Almost violet, like the last touch of sunset on the edge of the world. Dorabella.”

All the segments return to blue.

“Welcome to the human race.” The Doctor smiles. You're all brilliant. Now. Got to stop them Stop the Daleks.”

“Wait, Doctor. Wait, wait. It's too late. They've gone.” Bracewell explains.

“No. No! They can't. They can't have got away from me again.”

“No, I can feel it. My mind is clear. The Daleks have gone.”

“Doctor, it's okay. You did it. You stopped the bomb. Doctor?” Amy looks at him.

“I had a choice. And they knew I'd choose the Earth. The Daleks have won. They beat me. They've won.”

“But you saved the Earth. Not too shabby, is it?” Aila places a hand on his shoulder, he turns flashing her a small smile.

“No, it's not too shabby.”

“It's a brilliant achievement, my dear friend. Here, have a cigar.” Churchill offers once they have returned to the map room.

“No.”

“So, what now, then?” Amy smiles leaning against a table.

“I still have a war to run, Miss Pond.” Churchill answers while the Doctor slips out of the room. The Prime Minister goes back to his troops distracted by something, leaving Amy and Aila alone.

“You have a crush on the Doctor? Don't you?” Aila raises an eyebrow.

“No, course not.” Amy shrugs. “I love Rory.”

“You ran away the night before your wedding.”

“Technically it's still the night before my wedding. Besides, why would a time lord what a human girl? We're just companions. He'll get bored with us eventually.”

“I know that”

“Do you?” Amy gives her a pointed look just as the Doctor strolls back into the room.

“Where have you been?” Amy turns away from Aila.

“Tying up loose ends. I've taken out all the alien tech Bracewell put in.”

“Won't you reconsider, Doctor? Those Spitfires would win me the war in twenty hours.” Churchill questions.

“Exactly.”

“But why not? Why can't we put an end to all this misery?”

“Oh, it doesn't work like that, Winston, and it's going to be tough. There are terrible days to come. The darkest days. But you can do it. You know you can.”

“Stay with us, and help us win through. The world needs you.”

“The world doesn't need me.”

“No?”

“The world's got Winston Spencer Churchill.”

“It's been a pleasure, Doctor, as always.”

“Too right.”

“Goodbye, Doctor.”

“Oh, shall we say adieu?” The two men embrace briefly.  
“Indeed. Goodbye, ladies.”

“It's, it's been amazing, meeting you.” Amy states.

“I'm sure it has.”

“Oi, Churchill. Tardis key. The one you just took from the Doctor.” Aila commands.

“Oh, she's good, Doctor. As sharp as a pin. Almost as sharp as me.” He returns the key to the Doctor.

The three make their way to the laboratory to say goodbye to Bracewell.

“I've been expecting you, Doctor. I knew this moment had to come.” Bracewell tells them with sadness in his voice.

“Moment?”

“It's time to deactivate me.”

“Is it? Oh. Er, yeah.”

“You have no choice. I'm Dalek technology. Can't allow me to go pottering around down here where I have no business.”

“No, you're dead right, Professor. A hundred percent right. And by the time I get back here in what, ten minutes?”

“More like fifteen.” Amy muses.

“Fifteen minutes, yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do. You are going to be so deactivated. It's going be like you've never even been activated.”

“Fifteen minutes?”

“More like twenty, if I'm honest. Once the Ponds and I see to the urgent thing we've got to see to. The, the. See?”

“Very well, Doctor. I shall wait here and prepare myself.”

“That Dalek tech a bit slow on the uptake. That thing we've got to do, going to take half an hour, realistically, isn't it, Doctor?” Amy suggests.

“Easily. So no running off, that's what I'm saying. Don't go trying to find that little Post Office with the ash trees or that girl. What was her name?”

“Dorabella.”

“Dorabella. On no account go looking for her. Mind you, you can get a lot done in half an hour.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Doctor.”

“Come along, Ponds.”  
The group heads back to the room where the Tardis is waiting.

“So, you have enemies then?” Amy looks at him.

“Everyone's got enemies.”

“Yeah, but mine's the woman outside Budgens with the mental Jack Russell. You've got, like, you know, arch-enemies.”

“Suppose so.”

“And here's me thinking we'd just be running through time, being daft and fixing stuff. But no, it's dangerous.”

“Yep. Very. Is that a problem?”

“We're still here, aren't we? You're worried about the Daleks.”

“I'm always worried about the Daleks.”

“It'll take time though, won't it? I mean, there's still not many of them. They'll need a while to build themselves up.”

“It's not that. There's something else. Something we've forgotten. Or rather you both have.”

“Us?”

“Neither of you know them. You've never seen them before. And you should have.” He leads them into the Tardis, doors closing behind them.

 

 


	4. Crash of The Byzantium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Doctor Who or the plots I choose to borrow.

“This is a museum.” Amy complains when they step out of the Tardis.

“Yes, I love museums” The Doctor smiles, walking from exhibit to exhibit. “Wrong. Wrong. Bit right, mostly wrong.”

“Yea, great. Can we go to a planet now? Big space ship? Churchill's bunker? You promised me a planet next.” Amy chases the Doctor along the cases.

“Amy, this isn't any old asteroid. It's the Delerium Archive, the finale resting place of the headless monks. The biggest museum ever.”

“You've got a time machine. What do you need museums for?”

“Wrong. Very wrong. Ooo, one of mine. Also one of mine.” He hops around like a child.

“It's how you keep score.” Aila realizes coming to stand next to him while he examines an old box. “What is that?

“It's from one of the old star liners. A Home Box.”

“What's a Home Box?”

“Like a black box on a plane, except it homes. Anything happens to the ship, the Home Box flies home with all the flight data.”

“So?”

“The writing, the graffiti. Old High Gallifreyan. The lost language of the Time Lords.” He explains. “There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods.”

“What does it say?”

“Hello, Doctor.” He breaks the glass grabbing the box and leads the girls back into the Tardis with alarms blaring behind them.

“Why are we doing this?” Amy wonders as he plugs the box up to the console.

“Because someone on a spaceship twelve thousand years ago is trying to attract my attention. Let's see if we can get the security playback working.”

The camera shows a woman winking at the camera.

“The party's over, Doctor Song. Yet still you're on board.”

“Sorry, Alistair. I needed to see what was in your vault. Do you all know what's down there? Any of you? Because I'll tell you something. This ship won't reach its destination.”

“Wait till she runs. Don't make it look like an execution.”

“Triple seven five. Slash three four nine by ten. Zero twelve slash acorn. Oh, and I could do with an air corridor.”

The Doctor inputs something into the computer.

“What was that? What did she say?” Amy asks.

“Coordinates.” He walks over to the door opening it. And holds out his hand the woman from the security footage lands on top of him.

“River?” He helps her to her feet.

“Follow that ship.” She instructs and follows the Doctor to the console while Amy and Aila watch.”They've gone into warp drive. We're losing them. Stay close.”

“I'm trying.”

“Use the stabilizers.” River instructs.

“There aren't any stabilizers.” The Doctor argues.

“The blue switches.” River explains.

“Oh, the blue ones don't do anything, they're just blue.”

“Yes, they're blue. Look, they're the blue stabilizers.” She presses them and the Tardis stops shaking. “See?”

“Yeah. Well, it's just boring now, isn't it? They're boring-ers. They're blue boring-ers.” The Doctor complains.

“Doctor, how come she can fly the Tardis?” Amy asks.

“You call that flying the Tardis? Ha!”

“Okay. I've mapped the probability vectors, done a fold-back on the temporal isometry, charted the ship to its destination, and parked us right along side” River tells them calmly.

“Parked us? We haven't landed.”

“Of course we've landed. I just landed her.”

“But, it didn't make the noise.”

“What noise?”

“You know, the...” he attempts to make the familiar Tardis whooshing sound.

“It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on.”

“Yeah, well, it's a brilliant noise. I love that noise. Come along, Ponds. Let's have a look.”

“No, wait. Environment checks.” River calls after him.

“Oh yes, sorry. Quite right. Environment checks.” The Doctor opens the door and looks out. “Nice out.”

“We're somewhere in the Garn Belt. There's an atmosphere. Early indications suggest that...”

“We're on Alfava Metraxis, the seventh planet of the Dundra System. Oxygen rich atmosphere, all toxins in the soft band, eleven hour day and chances of rain later.” He smiles

“He thinks he's so cool when he does that.” River looks at Aila.

“How come you can fly the Tardis?” Amy turns to River.

“Oh, I had lessons from the very best.”

“Well, yeah.” The Doctor straightens his bow tie.

“It's a shame you were busy that day. Right then, why did they land here?”

“They didn't land.” The Doctor explains.

“Sorry?”

“You should've checked the Home Box. It crashed.” He lets River walk out the door then he shuts it behind her.

“Explain Who is that and how did she do that museum thing?” Amy stares at the door.

“It's a long story and I don't know most of it. Off we go.”

“What are you doing?” Amy questions.

“Leaving. She's got where she wants to go, let's go where we want to go.”  
“Are you basically running away?” Aila accuses.

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Because she's the future. Part of my future.”

“Can you run away from that?” Aila leans against the railings looking over at him.

“I can run away from anything I like. Time is not the boss of me.”

“Hang on, is that a planet out there?” Amy points at the door.

“Yes, of course it's a planet.”

“You promised me a planet. Five minutes?”

“Okay, five minutes.” He gives in.

“Yes!” Amy bounces out the doors happily.

“But that's all, because I'm telling you now, that woman is not dragging me into anything.” He calls after her, before turning to Aila. “Coming Pond?”

“Yes, why wouldn't I?” She asks nervously.

“Because you haven't moved from that spot.” He comes to stand in front of her.

“Oh” She looks down at her shoes.

“Aila, I won't let anything happen to you.” He holds out a hand.

“I know. It's silly, isn't it?”

“What is?”

“Fear that you just can't explain.”

He moves closer, opting to lift her hand into his.

“No it isn't. Everyone has fear they can't quite explain.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me.” He smiles encouragingly.

“Okay then, shall we go find out what sort of trouble my sister has gotten herself into?”

Outside Amy and River are talking.

“What caused it to crash?” Amy asked looking up at the wreckage.

“Not me?” River looks to the Doctor.

“Nah, the airlock would've sealed seconds after you blew it. According to the Home Box, the warp engines had a phase shift. No survivors.” The Doctor answers.

“A phase shift would have to be sabotage. I did warn them.” River nods.

“About what?” Aila

“Well, at least the building was empty. Aplan temple. Unoccupied for centuries.”

“Aren't you going to introduce us?” Amy eyes the Doctor expectantly.

“Right, Amy Pond, Aila Pond, Professor River Song.”

“Ah, I'm going to be a Professor some day, am I? How exciting. Spoilers.”

“Yeah, but who is she and how did she do that? She just left you a note in a museum.”

“Two things always guaranteed to show up in a museum. The Home Box of category four star liner and sooner or later, him. It's how he keeps score.” River tells them.

“I know.” Aila smiles.

“It's hilarious, isn't it?” River laughs, watching Aila for a moment. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, why wouldn't I be?” Aila answers, confused.

“You look tired.”

“It's been a busy few days.”

“I'm nobody's taxi service. I'm not going to be there to catch you every time you feel like jumping out of a space ship.” The Doctor scolds River.

“That is what you think, my friend. There's one survivor. There's a thing in the belly of that ship that can't ever die.” She explains. “Now he's listening.” She lifts up her communicator.”You lot in orbit yet? Yeah, I saw it land. I'm at the crash site. Try and home in on my signal. Doctor, can you sonic me? I need to boost the signal so we can use it as a beacon.” She walks away from them while she is talking.

He holds out his screwdriver pointing it at her. After she returns she pulls out a Tardis notebook.

“Where are we up to? Have we done the Bone Meadows?”

“What's the book?” Amy glances over River's shoulder.

“Stay away from it.” The Doctor tells her.

“What is it though?”

“Her past, my future. Time travel. We keep meeting in the wrong order.” Four small tornadoes drop soldiers onto the ground.

“You promised me an army, Doctor Song.” A man walks up to them.

“No, I promised you the equivalent of an army. This is the Doctor.”

“Father Octavian, Sir. Bishop, second class. Twenty clerics at my command. The troops are already in the drop ship and landing shortly. Doctor Song was helping us with a covert investigation. Has Doctor Song explained what we're dealing with?”

“Doctor, what do you know of the Weeping Angels?” River turns to the Doctor smiling.

“I've seen them before” He responds.

“Good, let's go meet the others and get where we need to go.” River instructs walking past them. The Doctor makes a face before following her. Amy and Aila walk a bit further back with the troops.

“Wow, she must be special.” Amy observes. “The Doctor finally stopped watching you.”

Aila doesn't respond just keeps walking with the group until they have joined the others in the camp. River goes off to change clothes and everyone else moves around working or observing.

“The Angel, as far as we know, is still trapped in the ship. Our mission is to get inside and neutralizes it. We can't get through up top, we'd be too close to the drives. According to this, behind the cliff face there's a network of catacombs leading right up to the temple. We can blow through the base of the cliffs, get into the entrance chamber, then make our way up.” Octavian tells them.

“Oh, good.” The Doctor smiles.

“Good, sir?”

“Catacombs. Probably dark ones. Dark catacombs. Great.” His answer comes at a far more sarcastic tone then his expression.

“Technically, I think it's called a maze of the dead.” The Father explains.

“You can stop any time you like.”

Someone calls for Father Octavian and he walks off.

“You're letting people call you sir. You never do that. So, whatever a Weeping Angel is, it's really bad, yeah?” Amy asks.

“A Weeping Angel, Amy, is the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life form evolution has ever produced, and right now one of them is trapped inside that wreckage and I'm supposed to climb in after it with a screwdriver and a torch, and assuming I survive the radiation long enough and assuming the whole ship doesn't explode in my face, do something incredibly clever which I haven't actually thought of yet. That's my day. That's what I'm up to. Any questions?”

“Is River Song your wife? Because she's someone from your future, and the way she talks to you, I've never seen anyone do that. She's kind of like, you know, heel, boy. She's Mrs Doctor from the future, isn't she? Is she going to be your wife one day?”

“No, she's just a friend.” He defends. “A very close well, very well trusted friend in my future.”

“Doctor! Doctor?” River calls from inside a module. “Father Octavian!”

“Why do they call him Father?” Amy asks as they head inside the module.

“He's their Bishop, they're his Clerics. It's the fifty first Century. The Church has moved on.”

Inside the room a grainy image of a Weeping Angel with its back towards them is on a monitor on the far wall.

“What do you think? It's from the security cameras in the Byzantium vault. I rigged it when I was on board. Sorry about the quality. It's four seconds. I've put it on loop.”

“Yeah, it's an Angel. Hands covering its face.”

“You've encountered the Angels before?” Octavian questions the Doctor.

“Once, on Earth, a long time ago. But those were scavengers, barely surviving.”

“But it's just a statue.” Amy argues.

“It's a statue when you see it.” River tells her.

“Where did it come from?”

“Oh, pulled from the ruins of Razbahan, end of last century. It's been in private hands ever since. Dormant all that time.”

“There's a difference between dormant and patient.”

“What's that mean, it's a statue when you see it?” Amy stares at the screen.

“The Weeping Angels can only move if they're unseen. So legend has it.” River tells her.

“No, it's not legend, it's a quantum lock. In the sight of any living creature the Angels literally cease to exist. They're just stone. The ultimate defense mechanism.” The Doctor warns.

“What, being a stone?” Amy is unconvinced.

“Being a stone until you turn your back.” The Doctor tells Amy.”The hyper-drive would've split on impact. That whole ship's going to be flooded with drive burn radiation, cracked electrons, gravity storms. Deadly to almost any living thing.”

“Deadly to an Angel?” Octavian looks hopeful.

“Dinner to an Angel. The longer we leave it there, the stronger it will grow. Who built that temple? Are they still around?” He looks to the others for an answer.

“The Aplans. Indigenous life form. They died out four hundred years ago.” River checks the data on her hand held computer.

“Two hundred years later, the planet was terraformed. Currently there are six billion human colonists.” Octavian adds.

“Whoo! You lot, you're everywhere. You're like rabbits. I'll never get done saving you.” The Doctor laughs.

“Sir, if there is a clear and present danger to the local population”

“Oh, there is. Bad as it gets. Bishop, lock and load.”

“Verger, how are we doing with those explosives? Doctor Song, with me.”

“Two minutes. Doctor, I need you.”

The Doctor leaves the room following River.

“Anybody need us? Nobody?” Amy walks back inside. “Aila?”

“I'm not going in there, even if it's a recording.” Aila explains stepping out. Amy shrugs going back inside leaving Aila to wander around until she finds a box to sit on and observe her surrounds.

“Aila” A whisper in her ear. She jumps a bit looking around. She realizes that no one is near her and shakes her head. A dull ache has begun in her head, so she closes her eyes sighing.

“Amy!” The Doctor yells. Aila jumps up running to meet him at the module.

“Doctor!” Amy's panicked voice comes from inside of room.

“Are you all right? What's happening?” The Doctor leans against the door, listening.

“Doctor? Doctor, it's coming out of the television.” Amy yells. “The angel is here.”

“Don't take your eyes off it. Keep looking. It can't move if you're looking.” The Doctor uses his screwdriver to try and open the door.

“What's wrong?” River watches.

“Deadlocked.”

“There is no deadlock.”

“Don't blink, Amy. Don't even blink.” The Doctor instructs.

“Doctor.” Amy's scared voice makes Aila uncomfortable.

“What are you doing?” River asks.

“Cutting the power. It's using the screen, I'm turning the screen off. No good, it's deadlocked the whole system.”

“There's no deadlock.”

“There is now.”

“Help me!” Amy calls.

“Amy!” Aila leans against the door. “Amy!”

“Can you turn it off?” The Doctor stands behind Aila still pounding on the door.

“I tried.”

“Try again, but don't take your eyes off the Angel.”

“I'm not.”

“Each time it moves, it'll move faster. Don't even blink.”  
  


“I'm not blinking. Have you ever tried not blinking? It just keeps switching back on.”

“Yeah, it's the Angel.”

“But it's just a recording.”

“No, anything that takes the image of an Angel is an Angel. What are you doing?” He looks at River who is using a small torch on the door.

“I'm trying to cut through. It's not even warm.”

“There is no way in. It's not physically possible.” The Doctor points out.

“Doctor, what's it going to do to me?” Amy's voice sounds terrified.

“Just keep looking at it. Don't stop looking.” The Doctor instructs.

“Just tell me.”

The Doctor runs and gets the book he was looking at.

“Tell me. Tell me!”

“Amy, not the eyes. Look at the Angel but don't look at the eyes.”

“Why?”

“What is it?” Aila leans her head against the door. “I should have stayed with her.”

“No, neither of you should have been in there. The eyes are not the windows of the soul. They are the doors. Beware what may enter there.”

“Doctor, what did you say?”

“Don't look into the eyes.”

“No, about images. What did you say about images?”

“Whatever holds the image of an Angel, is an Angel.” River yells.

The door suddenly unlocks and River, the Doctor, and Aila rush inside.

“I froze it. There was a sort of blip on the tape and I froze it on the blip. It wasn't the image of an Angel any more. That was good, yeah? It was, wasn't it? That was pretty good.” Amy is shaking but happy. Aila wraps her arms around her sister.

“Don't do that.” Aila scolds still gripping tightly to her sister.

“I'll try”

“So it was here? That was the Angel?” River looks at the dark screen.

“That was a projection of the Angel. It's reaching out, getting a good look at us. It's no longer dormant.” Outside an explosion can be heard and they all walk outside to see what it is.

“Doctor? We're through.” Father Octavian shouts.

“Okay, now it starts.” The Doctor takes a deeps breath. Aila follows behind him. “If I ask you to go back to the Tardis and wait, will you?”

“Absolutely not.” She tells him looking back to make sure Amy and River are following.

“That's what I thought.”

A minute passes before River and Amy join them. The large group climbs down a rope ladder into a very large underground cavern.

“Do we have a gravity globe?” The Doctor turns to Father Octavian.

“Grav globe.” Octavian demands and a cleric hands a globe to the Doctor.

“Where are we? What is this?” Amy asks.

“It's an Aplan Mortarium, sometimes called a Maze of the Dead.” River tells her.

“What's that?”

“Well, if you happen to be a creature of living stone” The Doctor kicks the globe into the air, where is illuminates a vast array of mausoleums and statuary. “The perfect hiding place.”

“I guess this makes it a bit trickier.” Octavian takes a deep breath.

“A bit, yeah.”

“A stone Angel on the loose amongst stone statues. A lot harder than I'd prayed for.”

“A needle in a haystack.” River agrees.

“A needle that looks like hay. A hay-like needle of death. A hay-alike needle of death in a haystack of, er, statues. No, yours was fine.” The Doctor rambles.

  
“Right. Check every single statue in this chamber. You know what you're looking for. Complete visual inspection. One question. How do we fight it?” Octavian nods.

“We find it, and hope.”

He starts walking ahead and Aila follows with Amy lingering not far behind.

“Aila!” She spins around searching for the source but finds nothing. Her headache pulses more, and she winces in pain.

“Come along, Pond” The Doctor has come back and is watching her intently. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. Lead on Doctor.” She smiles. He returns to expression then begins walking again.

After awhile he pauses, attempting to use River's scanner on a wall.

“Yes, we are.” River calls from where she is standing with Amy.

“Sorry, what?” The Doctor asks turning to look back at them.

“Talking about you.” River says.

“I wasn't listening. I'm busy.” He responds.

“Ah. The other way up.” River laughs. The Doctor turns the computer around.

Suddenly they hear gunfire and begin running back towards the main group. A young cleric has shot at a statue.

“Sorry, sorry. I thought. I thought it looked at me.”

“We know what the Angel looks like. Is that the Angel?” Octavian asks the young man.

“No, sir.”

“No, sir, it is not. According to the Doctor, we are facing an enemy of unknowable power and infinite evil, so it would be good, it would be very good, if we could all remain calm in the presence of decor.”

“What's your name?” The Doctor approaches the young man.

“Bob, sir.”

“Ah, that's a great name. I love Bob.”

“It's a Sacred Name. We all have Sacred Names. They're given to us in the service of the Church.” Octavian clarifies.

“Sacred Bob. More like Scared Bob now, eh?” The Doctor looks at the man again.

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah, good. Scared keeps you fast. Anyone in this room who isn't scared is a moron. Carry on.”

“We'll be moving into the maze in two minutes. You stay with Christian and Angelo. Guard the approach.” Octavian tells him before they all move away back into the maze again.

“Isn't there a chance this lot's just going to collapse? There's a whole ship up there.” Amy worries.

“Incredible builders, the Aplans.” River assures her.

“Had dinner with their Chief Architect once. Two heads are better than one.” The Doctor tells the group.

“What, you mean you helped him?”

“No, I mean he had two heads. That book, the very end, what did it say?”

“What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels.” River reads.

“Are we there yet? It's a hell of a climb.” Amy sounds winded.

“The Maze is on six levels, representing the ascent of the soul. Only two levels to go.” River assures her.

“Lovely species, the Aplans. We should visit them some time.” The Doctor states.

“I thought they were all dead?”

“So is Virginia Woolf. I'm on her bowling team. Very relaxed, sort of cheerful. Well, that's having two heads, of course. You're never short of a snog with an extra head.”

“Doctor?” Aila stops suddenly, a horrifying realization falling over her.

“What is it?” He turns around coming to stand in front of her. “Aila, what's wrong.”

“The Aplans, they had two heads, didn't they?” She whispers, voice shaking.

The Doctor's expression changes quickly.

“Nobody move. Nobody move. Everyone stay exactly where they are. Bishop, I am truly sorry. I've made a mistake and we are all in terrible danger.”

“What danger?” Octavian seems confused.

“The Aplans have two heads.”

“Yes, I get that. So?”

“So why don't the statues? Everyone, over there. Just move. Don't ask questions, don't speak.” He wraps his hand around Aila's leading her into an alcove with the others. ”Okay, I want you all to switch off your torches.”

“Sir?”

“Just do it. Okay. I'm going to turn off this one too, just for a moment.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“No.” The lights go out and then come back on.

“Oh, my God. They've moved.” Amy cries. The Doctor runs down the passage, and it is filled statues coming towards them.

“They're Angels. All of them.” River says.

“But they can't be.” Octavian sounds unbelieving.

“Clerics, keep watching them.” The Doctor runs back to a vantage point of the main cavern. All the statues are climbing up towards them. ”Every statue in this Maze, every single one, is a Weeping Angel. They're coming after us.”

“But there was only one Angel on the ship. Just the one, I swear.” River exclaims.

“Could they have been here already?” Aila asks.

“The Aplans. What happened? How did they die out?” The Doctor comes running back.

“Nobody knows.” River tells him.

“We know.” The Doctor says.

“They don't look like Angels.” Octavian reasons.

“And they're not fast. You said they were fast. They should have had us by now.” Amy adds.

“Look at them. They're dying, losing their form. They must have been down here for centuries, starving.”

“Losing their image?”

“And their image is their power. Power. Power!”

“Doctor?”

“Don't you see? All that radiation spilling out the drive burn. The crash of the Byzantium wasn't an accident, it was a rescue mission for the Angels. We're in the middle of an army, and it's waking up.”

“We need to get out of here fast.” River warns.

“Bob, Angelo, Christian, come in, please. Any of you, come in.” Octavian speaks into his communicator.

“It's Bob, sir. Sorry, sir.“

“Bob, are Angelo and Christian with you? All the statues are active. I repeat, all the statues are active.”

“I know, sir. Angelo and Christian are dead, sir. The statues killed them, sir.” The Doctor grabs Octavian's communicator out of his hand.

“Bob, Sacred Bob, it's me, the Doctor. Where are you now?”

“I'm on my way up to you, sir. I'm homing in on your signal.”

“Ah, well done, Bob. Scared keeps you fast. Told you, didn't I. Your friends, Bob. What did the Angel do to them?”

“Snapped their necks, sir.”

“That's odd. That's not how the Angels kill you. They displace you in time. Unless they needed the bodies for something.”

“I didn't escape, sir. The Angel killed me, too.”

“What do you mean, the Angel killed you?”

“Snapped my neck, sir. Wasn't as painless as I expected, but it was pretty quick, so that was something.”

“If you're dead, how can I be talking to you?”

“You're not talking to me, sir. The Angel has no voice. It stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and re-animated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion.”

“So when you say you're on your way up to us”

“It's the Angel that's coming, sir, yes. No way out.”

“Then we get out through the wreckage. Go! Go, go, go. All of you run.” Octavian orders.

“Angel Bob. Which Angel am I talking to? The one from the ship?” The Doctor asks still standing in place.

“Yes, sir. And the other Angels are still restoring.”

“Ah, so the Angel is not in the wreckage. Thank you.” The Doctor grabs Aila's hand and they run past Amy.

“Come on Pond.”

“I can't. No, really, I can't.” Amy tells them as Aila pulls on her sister's arm.

“Why not?” Aila asks.

“Look at it. Look at my hand. It's stone.”

“You looked into the eyes of an Angel, didn't you?” The Doctor demands.

“I couldn't stop myself. I tried.”

“Listen to me. It's messing with your head. Your hand is not made of stone.”

“It is. Look at it.”

“It's in your mind, I promise you. You can move that hand. You can let go.”

“I can't, okay? I've tried and I can't. It's stone.”

“The Angel is going to come and it's going to turn this light off, and then there's nothing I can do to stop it, so do it. Concentrate. Move your hand.”

“I can't.”

“Then we're all going to die.”

“You're not going to die.”

“They'll kill the lights.”

“You've got to go. You know you have. Aila needs you. And you've got all that stuff with River still.”

“Time can be re-written. It doesn't work like that. And Aila won't leave you behind, right Aila?”

“Right, also, Angel.” She looks up pointing at the Angel that has now caught up with them.

“Keep your eyes on it. Don't blink.”

“Run! Please, both of you run!”

“You see, we're not going. We're not leaving you here.”

“I don't need you to die for me, Doctor. Do I look that clingy?”

“You can move your hand.”

“It's stone.”

“It's not stone.”

“You've got to go. Those people up there will die without you. If you stay here with me, you'll have as good as killed them.”

“Amy Pond, you are magnificent, and I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. I understand. You've got to leave me.”

“Oh, no, I'm not leaving you, never. I'm sorry about this.” He leans over biting Amy on the hand. Aila can't help but laugh as Amy gives her an annoyed look.

“Ow!”

“See? Not stone. Now run.” He pushes her ahead of him and pulls Aila along beside him.

“You bit me.”

“Yeah, and you're alive.”

“Look, I've got a mark. Look at my hand.”

“Yes, and you're alive. Did I mention?”

“Blimey, your teeth. Have you got space teeth?”

“Yeah. Alive. All I'm saying.” They run and join the others in a tunnel

“The statues are advancing along all corridors. And, sir, my torch keeps flickering.” One of the clerics announces.

“They all do.” Octavian responds.

“So does the gravity globe.” River looks up

“Clerics, we're down to four men. Expect incoming.”

“Yeah, it's the Angels. They're coming. And they're draining the power for themselves.”

“Which means we won't be able to see them.”

“Which means we can't stay here.”

“Any suggestions?”

“The statues are advancing on all sides. We don't have the climbing equipment to reach the Byzantium.”

“There's no way up, no way back, no way out. No pressure, but this is usually when you have a really good idea.”

“There's always a way out.” The Doctor looks around.

“Doctor? Can I speak to the Doctor, please?” The angel speaks through the communicator.

“Hello, Angels. What's your problem?”

“Your power will not last much longer, and the Angels will be with you shortly. Sorry, sir.”

“Why are you telling me this?

“There's something the Angels are very keen you should know before the end.”

“Which is?”

“I died in fear.”

“I'm sorry?”

“You told me my fear would keep me alive, but I died afraid, in pain and alone. You made me trust you, and when it mattered, you let me down.”

“What are they doing?” Amy looks to River for an explanation.

“They're trying to make him angry.”

“I'm sorry, sir. The Angels were very keen for you to know that.”

“Well then, the Angels have made their second mistake because I'm not going to let that pass. I'm sorry you're dead, Bob, but I swear to whatever is left of you, they will be sorrier.”

“But you're trapped, sir, and about to die.”

“Yeah. I'm trapped. And you know what? Speaking of traps, this trap has got a great big mistake in it. A great big, whopping mistake.”

“What mistake, sir?”

“Trust me.” The Doctor looks to Amy and Aila in turn. They both nod in agreement. When he turns to River she also nods. “Father?”

“I have faith.”

“Then give me your gun. I'm about to do something incredibly stupid and dangerous. When I do, jump!”

“Jump where?”

“Just jump, high as you can. Come on, leap of faith, Bishop. On my signal.”

“What signal?”

“You won't miss it.”

“Sorry, can I ask again? You mentioned a mistake we made.”

“Oh, big mistake. Huge. Didn't anyone every tell you there's one thing you never put in a trap? If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap.” He points the gun up at the ship above them.

“And what would that be, sir?”

“Me.” He fires the gun and they jump. ”Up. Look up.”

Everyone struggles to their feet on an artificial surface, although the tunnel walls are the same.

“Are you okay?” River helps Amy to her feet.

Aila looks around, her head spinning. But she ignores it.

“What happened?” Amy is confused.

“We jumped”

“Jumped where?”

“Up. Up. Look up.” The Doctor tells them.

“Where are we?”

“Exactly where we were.”

“No we're not.”

“Move your feet.” The Doctor instructs Amy. She moves and he uses his screwdriver on a circular hatch.

“Doctor, what am I looking at? Explain.”

“Oh, come on, Amy, think. The ship crashed with the power still on, yeah? So what else is still on?”

“The artificial gravity.” Aila looks up.

“One good jump, and up we fell. Shot out the grav globe to give us an updraft, and here we are.” The Doctor adds.

“Doctor, the statues. They look more like Angels now.” Octavian observes.

“They're feeding on the radiation from the wreckage, draining all the power from the ship, restoring themselves. Within an hour, they'll be an army.” The hatch opens, a light explodes. “They're taking out the lights. Look at them. Look at the Angels. Into the ship, now. Quickly, all of you.”

“How?” Amy still seems lost.

The Doctor drops through the open hatch into a circular corridor. He appears to be standing on the side of a vertical tube.

  
“It's just a corridor. The gravity orientates to the floor. Now, in here, all of you. Don't take your eyes off the Angels. Move, move, move.”

Everyone follows his instruction and jumps inside. The Doctor begins working on a control panel.

“The Angels. Presumably they can jump up too?” Octavian turns to the Doctor. The hatch closes.

“They're here, now. In the dark, we're finished.” Behind him a bulkhead begins to close. “Run!”

“This whole place is a death trap.” Octavian yells. The bulkhead closes before they can get through it.

“No, it's a time bomb. Well, it's a death trap and a time bomb. And now it's a dead end. Nobody panic. Oh, just me then. What's through here?”

“Secondary flight deck.” River tells him.

“Okay. so we've basically run up the inside of a chimney, yeah? So what if the gravity fails?” Amy asks.

“I've thought about that.”

“And?”

“And we'll all plunge to our deaths. See? I've thought about it. The security protocols are still live. There's no way to override them. It's impossible.”

“How impossible?” Aila leans against the wall, the pain behind her eyes intensifies, but she ignores it.

“Two minutes.” As he speaks the lights flicker and the outer hatch comes open.

“The hull is breached and the power's failing.” Octavian worries. The lights go out. An arm is silhouetted against the open hatch.

“Sir, incoming.” A cleric alerts them.

“Doctor? Lights.” The Angel is starting to enter. Another flicker, and four are inside and the hatch is closed behind them.

“Clerics, keep watching them.” Octavian orders.

“And don't look at their eyes. Anywhere else. Not the eyes. I've isolated the lighting grid. They can't drain the power now.” The Doctor takes a breath.

“Good work, Doctor.”

“Yes. Good, good, good. Good in many ways. Good you like it so far.”

“So far?” Amy frowns.

“Well, there's only one way to open this door. I guess I'll need to route all the power in this section through the door control.”

“Good. Fine. Do it.” Octavian agrees.

“Including the lights. All of them. I'll need to turn out the lights.” The Doctor tells them.

“How long for?”

“Fraction of a second. Maybe longer. Maybe quite a bit longer.”

“Maybe?”

“I'm guessing. We're being attacked by statues in a crashed ship. There isn't a manual for this.”

“Doctor, we lost the torches. We'll be in total darkness.”

“No other way. Bishop.”

“Doctor Song, I've lost good Clerics today. You trust this man?”

“I absolutely trust him.”

“He's not some kind of madman, then?”

“I absolutely trust him.”

“Okay, Doctor. We've got your back.”

“Bless you. Bishop.”

“Combat distance, ten feet. As soon as the lights go down, continuous fire. Full spread over the hostiles. Do not stop firing while the lights are out. Shot gun protocol. We don't have bullets to waste.”

“Amy, when the lights go down, the wheel should release. Spin it clockwise four turns.”

“Ten.”

“No, four. Four turns.”

“Yeah, four. I heard you.”

“Ready!” He plunges his screwdriver into a control unit,

“On my count, then. God be with us all. Three, two, one, fire!” The lights go out, the Clerics start shooting at the approaching Angels.

“Turn!”

“Doctor, it's opening. It's working.” The bulkhead opens just enough for them to squeeze to.

“Fall back!” The Doctor commands as he slips through after everyone else. It shuts again and they run to the secondary flight deck. He immediately runs to the controls after the door slams shut. The Angels start banging on the door and the wheel begins turning.

“Doctor! What are you doing?”

Octavian has placed a device on the door. The wheel stops turning.

“Magnetized the door. Nothing could turn that wheel now.”

“Yeah?” Aila watches as the wheel starts turning again.

“Dear God!”

“Ah, now you're getting it. You've bought us time though. That's good. I am good with time.”

“Doctor.” Amy leans against the console, the wheel on a second door begins turning.

“Seal that door. Seal it now.” Octavian yells at his men who immediately obey.

“We're surrounded.” River exclaims as a third door's wheel begins to turn.

“Seal it. Seal that door. Doctor, how long have we got?” Octavian looks to the Doctor.

“Five minutes, max.”

“Nine.” Amy blurts out. Aila looks at her oddly.

“He said five”

“Yeah, five right.”

“Why'd you say nine?”

“I didn't”

“We need another way out of here.” River states from behind them.

“There isn't one.” Octavian responds.

“Yeah, there is. Course there is. This is a galaxy class ship. Goes for years between planet falls. So, what do they need?” The Doctor looks around expectantly.

“Oxygen?” Aila guesses. “Humans need oxygen?”

“You are a brilliant one, Aila Pond.” The Doctor smiles at her before going over to a wall and using his screwdriver on it.”Well, it's a sealed unit, but they must have installed it somehow. This whole wall should slide up. There's clamps. Release the clamps.”

The rear wall of the flight deck slides up to reveal a forest.

“That's a forest.” Aila is amazed moving closer to examine it.

“It's an oxygen factory.”

“And if we're lucky, an escape route.”

“Eight”

Aila spins around to stare at her sister.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing”

“Is there another exit? Scan the architecture, we don't have time to get lost in there.” The Doctor instructs the clerics.

“On it. Stay where you are until I've checked the Rad levels.” Octavian walks into the forest.

“Seven.”

“Seven?” The Doctor looks Amy over.

“Sorry, what?”

“You said seven.”

“No. I didn't.”

“Yes. you did.” Aila tells her coming to stand next to her. “You've been counting backwards.”

“No I haven't”

“Doctor, there's an exit, far end of the ship, into the Primary Flight Deck.” Octavian calls.

“Oh, good. That's where we need to go.”

“Plotting a safe path now.”

“Quick as you like.”

“Doctor? Excuse me? Hello, Doctor? Angel Bob here, sir.” The communicator in the Doctor's hand comes back to life.

“Ah. There you are, Angel Bob. How's life? Sorry, bad subject.”

“The Angels are wondering what you hope to achieve.”

“Achieve? We're not achieving anything. We're just hanging. It's nice in here. Consoles, comfy chairs, a forest. How's things with you?”

“The Angels are feasting, sir. Soon we will be able to absorb enough power to consume this vessel, this world. and all the stars and worlds beyond.”

“Well, we've got comfy chairs. Did I mention?”

“We have no need of comfy chairs.”

“I made him say comfy chairs.” The Doctor laughs.

“Six.” Amy blurts out.

“Okay, Bob, enough chat. Here's what I want to know. What have you done to Amy?”

“There is something in her eye.”

“What's in her eye?”

“We are.”

“What's he talking about? Doctor, I'm five. I mean, five. Fine! I'm fine.”

“See, I told you, you're counting.” Aila points out.

“Why?

“I don't know.”

“Well, counting down to what?”

“I don't know.”

“We shall take her. We shall take all of you. We shall have dominion over all time and space.”

“Get a life, Bob. Oops, sorry again. There's power on this ship, but nowhere near that much.”

“With respect, sir, there's more power on this ship than you yet understand.” A screeching sound can be heard all around them.

“What's that? Dear God, what is it?” River looks around afraid.

“They're back.” Octavian realizes.

“It's hard to put in your terms, Doctor Song, but as best I understand it, the Angels are laughing.”

“Laughing?” The Doctor questions.

“Because you haven't noticed yet, sir. The Doctor in the Tardis hasn't noticed.”

“Doctor.”

“No. Wait. There's something I've missed.” Above the bulkhead a crack appears.

“Isn't that…?” Aila steps back.

“Just like the crack in my bedroom” Amy joins her, both looking up.

“Yes. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched.”

“Okay, enough. We're moving out.” Octavian announces.

“Agreed. Doctor?” River looks at the Doctor expectantly.

“Yeah, fine.” But he is moving closer to the crack. Trying to get close enough to scan it. ”I'll be right behind you.”

“We're not leaving without you.” Aila argues.

“Oh yes, you are. Bishop?”

“Ladies, Doctor Song, now!”

“Doctor?” Aila looks at him again before Amy pulls her away into the forest.

They move in a little and suddenly Amy stops, rubbing her head. She looks weak.

“Amy? Amy, what's wrong?” Aila puts a hand on her face. “Amy?”

“Four” She sways and sits down before laying on a tree trunk.

“Med scanner, now.” River demands. She takes the device from a cleric and wraps it around Amy's arm before connecting it to her computer.

“Doctor Song, we can't stay here. We've got to keep moving.” Octavian tells her.

“We wait for the Doctor.” River argues.

“Our mission is to make this wreckage safe and neutralize the Angels. Until that is achieved...”

“Father Octavian, when the Doctor's in the room, your one and only mission is to keep him alive long enough to get everyone else home. And trust me, it's not easy. Now, if he's dead back there, I'll never forgive myself. And if he's alive, I'll never forgive him. And, Doctor, you're standing right behind me, aren't you?”

“Oh, yeah.” The Doctor says. Aila, now kneeling on the ground in from of Amy turns to look at the Doctor as he continues speaking. “Bishop, the Angels are in the forest.”

“We need visual contact on every line of approach.” Octavian gives his men orders and they all fan out.

“How did you get past them?” River wonders.

“I found a crack in the wall and told them it was the end of the universe.”

“What was it?” Amy sounds weak as she speaks.

“The end of the universe. Let's have a look, then.” He pulls the computer out of River's hands.

“So, what's wrong with me?”

“Nothing. You're fine.” River assures her.

“Everything. You're dying.”

“Doctor!” River and Aila shout at the same time.

“Yes, you're right. If we lie to her, she'll get all better. Right. Amy, Amy, Amy. What's the matter with Amelia? Something's in her eye. What does that mean? Does it mean anything?”

“Doctor.” Amy whispers.

“Busy.”

“Scared.”

“Course you're scared. You're dying. Shut up. What happened? She stared at the Angel. She looked into the eyes of an Angel for too long.” Various clerics call out that they can see Angels approaching.

“Keep visual contact. Do not let it move.” Octavian yells back.

“Come on, come on, come on. Wakey, wakey. She watched an Angel climb out of the screen. She stared at the Angel and, and...”

“The image of an Angel is an Angel.” Aila whispers.

“A living mental image in a living human mind. But we stare at them to stop them getting closer. We don't even blink, and that is exactly what they want. Because as long as our eyes are open, they can climb inside. There's an Angel in her mind.” Her clamps his hands over his mouth while they all share equal shocked expressions.

“Three. Doctor, it's coming. I can feel it. I'm going to die.”

“Please just shut up. I'm thinking. Now, counting. What's that about? Bob, why are they making her count?”

“To make her afraid, sir.”

“Okay, but why? What for?”

“For fun, sir.”

The Doctor throws the communicator away aggravated.

“Doctor, what's happening to me? Explain.”

“Inside your head, in the vision centers of your brain, there's an Angel. It's like there's a screen, a virtual screen inside your mind and the Angel is climbing out of it, and it's coming to shut you off.”

“Then what I do?”

“If it was a real screen, what would we do? We'd pull the plug. We'd kill the power. But we can't just knock her out, the Angel would just take over.”

“Then what? Quickly.” River is watching the screen with Amy's vitals on it.

“We've got to shut down the vision centers of her brain. We've got to pull the plug. Starve the Angel.”

“Doctor, she's got seconds.”

“How would you starve your lungs?”

“I'd stop breathing.” Aila has a hand on Amy's arm, she bites down on her cheek, refusing to give in to the urge to cry.

“Amy, close your eyes.”

“No. No, I don't want to.”

“Good, because that's not you, that's the Angel inside you. It's afraid. Do it. Close your eyes.”

Amy squeezes her eyes shut.

“She's normalizing. Oh, you did it. You did it.” River sighs in relief.”Still weak. Dangerous to move her.”

“So, can I open my eyes now?”

“Amy, listen to me. If you open your eyes now for more than a second, you will die. The Angel is still inside you. We haven't stopped it, we've just sort of paused it. You've used up your countdown. You cannot open your eyes.”

“Doctor, we're too exposed here. We have to move on.” Octavian calls.

“We're too exposed everywhere. And Amy can't move. And anyway, that's not the plan.”

“There's a plan?”

“I don't know yet. I haven't finished talking. Right! Father, you and your Clerics, you're going to stay here, look after Amy. If anything happens to her, I'll hold every single one of you personally responsible, twice. River, you me and Aila, we're going to find the Primary Flight Deck which is” He wets a finger holding it up. “A quarter of a mile straight ahead, and from there we're going to stabilize the wreckage, stop the Angels, and cure Amy.”

“How?”

“I'll do a thing.”

“What thing?”

“I don't know. It's a thing in progress. Respect the thing. Moving out!”

“Doctor, I'm coming with you. My Clerics'll look after Miss Pond. These are my best men. They'd lay down their lives in her protection.”

“I don't need you.”

“I don't care. Where Doctor Song goes, I go.”

“What? You two engaged or something?”

“Yes, in a manner of speaking. Marco, you're in charge till I get back.”

“Doctor? Please, can't I come with you?” Amy begs.

“You'd slow us down, Miss Pond.” Octavian explains.

“I don't want to sound selfish, but you'd really speed me up.”

“You'll be safer here. We can't protect you on the move. I'll be back for you soon as I can, I promise.” The Doctor assures Amy.

“You always say that.”

“I always come back. Good luck, everyone. Behave. Do not let that girl open her eyes. And keep watching the forest. Stop those Angels advancing. Amy, later. River, going to need your computer!”

He catches up to River and Aila who are following Octavian.

“She'll be alright.” The Doctor assures Aila leading her by the hand through the forest. He takes River's computer and inputs something from his screwdriver.

“What's that?” River watches him.

“Er, readings from a crack in the wall.”

“How can a crack in the wall be the end of the universe?”

“Don't know, but here's what I think. One day there's going to be a very big bang. So big every moment in history, past and future, will crack.”

“Is that possible? How?”

“How can you be engaged, in a manner of speaking?”

“Well, sucker for a man in uniform.”

“Doctor Song's in my personal custody. I released her from the Stormcage Containment Facility four days ago and I am legally responsible for her until she's accomplished her mission and earned her pardon. Just so we understand each other.”

“You were in Stormcage?” The computer makes a noise and he looks down.

“What? What is that?”

“The date. The date of the explosion, where the crack begins.”

“And for those of us who can't read the base code of the universe?”

“Pond's time.”

“What do you mean Pond's time?” Aila asks.

“Nothing.” He mutters to himself then wanders off ahead. They move silently until they reach the ship.

“It doesn't open up from here, but it's the Primary Flight Deck. This has got to be a service hatch or something.” Octavian announces.

“Hurry up and open it. Time's running out.” River tells him.

“What? What did you say? Time's running out, is that what you said?”

“Yeah. I just meant”

“I know what you meant. Hush. But what if it could?”

“What if what could?”

“Time. What if time could run out?”

“Got it.” Octavian pulls open the service hatch.

“Cracks. Cracks in time. Time running out. No, couldn't be. Couldn't be. But how is a duck pond a duck pond if there aren't any ducks? And they didn't recognize the Daleks. Okay, time can shift. Time can change. Time can be rewritten. Ah. Oh!”

“Doctor Song, get through, now. Then Miss Pond. Doctor? Doctor.”

“Time can be unwritten”

Aila and River tumble into the flight deck. River immediately goes to work on one of the near by consoles. Aila sits down rubbing her face in her hands. Black spots are dotting in her vision, the pain becoming almost unbearable.

“Aila?” River comes over to her looking down with a worried expression. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, continue with what you were doing.”

“If you're sure.”

“I am”

A few minutes pass in silence before the Doctor tumbles into the room closing the hatch behind him.

“There's a teleport. If I can get it to work. We can beam the others here. Where's Octavian?

“Octavian's dead. So is that teleport. You're wasting your time. I'm going to need your communicator.” He takes the device from River and presses a button.

“Amy? Amy? Is that you?”

“Doctor?”

“Where are you? Are the Clerics with you?”

“They've gone. There was a light and they walked into the light. Doctor, they didn't even remember each other.”

“No, they wouldn't.”

“What is that light?” Aila mumbles. She's tired. Unbelievably tired.

“Time running out. Amy, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I should never have left you there.” He frowns, Aila notices that he is watching her out of the corner of his eye while he speaks.

“Well, what do I do now?”

“You come to us. The Primary Flight Deck, the other end of the forest.”

“I can't see. I can't open my eyes.”

“Turn on the spot.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Just do it. Turn on the spot.”

“When the communicator sounds like my screwdriver, that means you're facing the right way. Follow the sound. You have to start moving now. There's Time Energy spilling out of that crack, and you have to stay ahead of it.”

“But the Angels, they're everywhere.”

“I'm sorry, I really am, but the Angels can only kill you.”

“What does the Time Energy do?”

“Just keep moving!”

“Tell me.”

“If the Time Energy catches up with you, you'll never have been born. It will erase every moment of your existence. You will never have lived at all. Now, keep your eyes shut and keep moving.”

“It's never going to work.” River sighs.

“What else have you got! River! Tell me!” He shouts, outside they can hear a clanging sound.

“What's that?”

“The Angels running from the fire. They came here to feed on the Time Energy, now it's going to feed on them. Amy, listen to me. I'm sending a bit of software to your communicator. It's a proximity detector. it'll beep if there's something in your way. You just maneuver till the beeping stops. Because, Amy, this is important. The forest is full of Angels. You're going to have to walk like you can see.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

“Look, just keep moving.”

“That Time Energy, what's it going to do?” River is still connecting cables and pressing buttons.

“Er, keep eating.”

“How do we stop it?”

“Feed it.”

“Feed it what?”

“A big, complicated space time event should shut it up for a while.”

“Like what, for instance?”

“Like me, for instance!”

“No” Aila stands, her vision shifting too quickly and she stumbles falling to the ground.

“Aila?” The Doctor drops to his knees before her and scans her with his screwdriver. “What is it? What's wrong?”

“Doctor?” River stands behind him

“I'm fine, talk to Amy.” Aila pulls herself up again leaning on the console.

“You are not fine.” The Doctor argues.

“I'm in less danger than Amy. So for now, I'm fine.”

“What's that?” Amy's voice comes through again along with beeping noises.

“It's a warning. There are Angels round you now.” He gives Aila a long looks before turning away again. River goes back to work.

“Amy, listen to me. This is going to be hard but I know you can do it. The Angels are scared and running, and right now they're not that interested in you. They'll assume you can see them and their instincts will kick in. All you've got to do is walk like you can see. Just don't open your eyes. Walk like you can see. You're not moving. You have to do this. Now. You have to do this!”

“Doctor? I can't find the communicator. I dropped it. I can't find it, Doctor. Doctor.”

“Doctor. Doctor!”

“Doctor.”

Amy appears on the flight deck and falls right into River's arm.

“Don't open your eyes. You're on the Flight Deck. The Doctor's here. I teleported you. See? Told you I could get it working.”

An alarm blares around them.

“What's that?”

“The Angels are draining the last of the ship's power, which means the shield's going to release” The bulkhead opens revealing a crows of Angels right in front of them.

“Angel Bob, I presume.” The Doctor points to the one with a communicator in its hand.

“The Time Field is coming. It will destroy our reality.”

“Yeah, and look at you all, running away. What can I do for you?”

“There is a rupture in time. The Angels calculate that if you throw yourself into it, it will close, and they will be saved.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could do, could do that. But why?”

“Your friends will also be saved.”

“Well, there is that.”

“I've traveled in time. I'm a complicated space time event too. Throw me in.” River suggests.

“Oh, be serious. Compared to me, these Angels are more complicated than you, and it would take every one of them to amount to me, so get a grip.”

“Doctor, I can't let you do this.”

“No, seriously, get a grip.”

“You're not going to die here!”

“No, I mean it. River, Amy, Aila get a grip.”

“Oh, you genius.” River catches onto whatever it is he is saying and goes to lead Amy to the console.

“Sir, the Angels need you to sacrifice yourself now.”

“Thing is, Bob, the Angels are draining all the power from this ship. Every last bit of it. And you know what? I think they've forgotten where they're standing. I think they've forgotten the gravity of the situation. Or to put it another way, Angels.”

“You hold on tight and don't you let go for anything.” River tells Amy.

The Doctor steps back, placing Aila's hands around a metal bar. He grabs on right next to her.

“Night, night.”

A Gravity Failed message flashes. Everyone lifts off the floor and the Angels all fall backwards through the forest into the crack which then closes.

Together the four of them climb out of the ship and back onto the beach.

“Ah. Bruised everywhere.” Amy complains.

“Me too.” The Doctor lies.

“You didn't have to climb out with your eyes shut.”

“Neither did you. I kept saying. The Angels all fell into the Time Field. The Angel in your memory never existed. It can't harm you now.” He laughs.

Nearby, Aila is sitting in the sand just listening.

“Then why do I remember it at all? Those guys on the ship didn't remember each other.”

“You're a time traveler now. Amy. It changes the way you see the universe, forever. Good, isn't it?”

“And the crack, is that gone too?”

“Yeah, for now. But the explosion that caused it is still happening. Somewhere out there, somewhere in time.”

Aila watches the Doctor move to speak to River and Amy comes to sit near her.

“Everything alright?” She asks, wrapping her blanket around Aila's shoulders. “You look a bit sick.”

“It's nothing, just a headache. It's getting better now that we are out of the ship. I'll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I mean after two years of solitude you've suddenly starting traveling time and space. You've started going outside.”

“I'm fine Amy.” She forces the smile and let's her sister leave her again to go say goodbye to River.

“Aila!”

“Stop it!” She whispers to the waves. “Stop it, please.”

She closes her eyes, trying to block out the voice by listening to the waves.

“I'm fine”

“Oi, Aila! Time to go!” Amy calls. She stands joining the others as they step into the Tardis.

Amy sits down as the Doctor gets to work.

“Where to now, Ponds?”

“I want to go home” Amy tells him.

Aila's heart thrums in her chest. She doesn't.

“Okay.” The Doctor sounds disappointed.

“No, not like that. I just, I just want to show you something. You're running from your future. I'm running too.”

When the Tardis doors open, they are in Amy's room, her wedding dress is hanging on the wardrobe.

“I'll give you two a minute.” Aila slips out wandering down the hall into her room. It's just as it was the night she left. Her old bear with the bow tie is still perched on the dresser. Old books and notes are scattered around.

She opens her nightstand door to reveal an envelope with 'Amy' written on it. Next to it, a simple black cloth is folded over.

Aila reaches under her bed and pulls out a backpack. She shoves the notes and cloth inside before turning and grabbing the bear. She pulls open a dresser drawer, inside there are several pill bottles all with her name. All a different medication.

“Aila!” The Doctor opens the door stepping in. Surprised, Aila slams the door shut again and grabs a handful of books to put in the bag.

“Yes?”

“Time to go!” He paused briefly looking around before grabbing her arm and leading her back to the Tardis.

  


 


	5. The Vampire of Venice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Doctor Who or the plots I am currently borrowing until I get to the better part of the story.

“Why is the Doctor fetching Rory from his stag night?” Aila asks.

Something had been off since the Doctor had brought her back to the Tardis. Amy had been leaning against the console in what Aila could only describe as an attempt at seduction. The older girl had looked disappointed and a bit embarrassed when Aila appeared. The Doctor had asked about Rory, and Amy had informed the Doctor of where he was.

“I'm not sure.” Amy avoids looking at her.

“What happened?” She presses.

“I may have kissed the Doctor.” Amy mutters, looking away.

“Amy!”

“What?! He's just so.. I don't know. Exciting, and Rory is well he's Rory.”

“He's your Rory. He is sweet and kind. And he loves you, Amy.”

“Yes he does” The Doctor wanders in with Rory behind him.

“Amy, hello.” Rory is stand off-ish, clearly aware of what has transpired already.

“Rory” Amy greets casually.

“Aila!” Rory seems much happier to see her, completly ignoring Amy, even running to embrace her, then looking her up and down. “Have you been minding your meds?”

“It's nice to see you to Rory.” Aila ignores his question and hopes that the Doctor who is heading down below them to work underneath the console hasn't heard.

“Oh, the life out there, it dazzles. I mean, it blinds you to the things that are important. I've seen it devour relationships and plans. It's meant to do that. Because for one person to have seen all that, to taste the glory and then go back, it will tear you apart. So, I'm sending you somewhere, together.” He calls from below them.

“Whoa. What, like a date?” Amy questions.

“Anywhere you want. Any time you want. One condition. It has to be amazing. The Moulin Rouge in 1890. The first Olympic Games. Think of it as a wedding present, because it's either this or tokens.” The Doctor climbs back up, facing Rory. “It's a lot to take in, isn't it? Tiny box, huge room inside. What's that about? Let me explain.”

“It's another dimension.” Rory deadpans.

“It's basically another dimension. What?”

“After what happened with Prisoner Zero, I've been reading up on all the latest scientific theories. FTL travel, parallel universes.”

“I like the bit when someone says it's bigger on the inside. I always look forward to that.”

“So, this date. I'm kind of done with running down corridors. What do you think, Rory?” Amy tries again to get Rory's attention.

“How about somewhere romantic?” The Doctor smiles, pulling a lever.

They step out of the Tardis, everyone looking around.

“Venice. Venezia. La Serenissima. Impossible city. Preposterous city. Founded by refugees running from Attila the Hun. It was just a collection of little wooden huts in the middle of the marsh, but became one of the most powerful cities in the world. Constantly being invaded, constantly flooding, constantly just beautiful. Ah, you got to love Venice. So many people did. Byron, Napoleon, Casanova. Ooo, that reminds me. 1580. That's all right. Casanova doesn't get born for a hundred and forty five years. Don't want to run into him. I owe him a chicken.”

“You owe Casanova a chicken?” Rory looks astonished.

“Long story. We had a bet.”

Before they can get into the city they are stopped by an official.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Papers, if you please. Proof of residency, current bill of medical inspection.”

The Doctor holds up a piece of paper showing it to the man.

“There you go, fellow. All to your satisfaction, I think you'll find.”

“I am so sorry, Your Holiness. I didn't realize.”

“No worries. You were just doing your job. Sorry, what exactly is your job?”

“Checking for aliens. Visitors from foreign lands what might bring the plague with them.”

“Oh, that's nice. See where you bring me? The plague.” Amy states giving the Doctor a look.

  
“Don't worry, Viscountess. No, we're under quarantine here. No one comes in, no one goes out, and all because of the grace and wisdom of our patron, Signora Rosanna Calvierri.”

“How interesting. I heard the plague died out years ago.” The Doctor tells the man.

“Not out there. No, Signora Calvierri has seen it with her own eyes. Streets are piled high with bodies, she said.”

“Did she now?”

The group move into the city and walks to a balcony watching the scene playing out below them. An iron gate swings open. Girls in white dresses with white parasols and heavy veils on their heads walk out two by two. Suddenly a man runs up to the girls and starts calling out.

“Where's my Isabella?”

“What are you doing? Get away from there.” A guard tries to pry the man away from the girls.

“Isabella? Isabella, it's me.” He lifts the veils off of a girl, they are clearly related. Another girl knocks the man down.

A woman calls the girls away and the man is left behind.

“Come along, Pond.” The Doctor whispers into Aila's ear and grasps her hand, leading her away from Rory and Amy. “Let's give them some time.”

He leads her into an alleyway where they find the man from before.

“Who are those girls?” The Doctor approaches the man.

“I thought everyone knew about the Calvierri school.”

“My first day here. It's okay. Parents do all sorts of things to get their children into good schools. They move house, they change religion. So why are you trying to get her out?”

“Something happens in there. Something magical, something evil. My own daughter didn't recognize me. And the girl who pushed me away, her face, like an animal.”

“I think it's time I met this Signora Calvierri.” The Doctor announces. “Any chance you're willing to make another scene so we can slip inside?”

“Sure, if you think it will help find out what is really going on.”

The three walk back towards the school. The man goes around to the front while Aila and the Doctor hide out by a side gate.

“You have my daughter. Isabella!”

“No, you're not coming in. Just stop there. Look, we've told you.”

The Doctor uses his screwdriver to unlock the gate. He leads Aila into the school while the man argues with the guards behind them.

“Do you think this will help them? Amy and Rory, I mean.”

“Yes, well I hope so. Why?”

“I don't know. It's just always been Amy and Rory. He's like a brother to me. Has been for years. I just don't want to see him get hurt.”

They walk down a staircase into a room with a vaulted roof, there are three doors on one wall and a mirror on the other.

The Doctor catches sight of his reflection and smiles. Aila stands behind him watching as he adjusts his bow tie.

“Hello, handsome.”

“Who are you?” Both Aila and the Doctor spin around surprised.

“How are you doing that? I am loving it. You're like Houdini, only five slightly scary girls, and he was shorter. Will be shorter. I'm rambling.”

“I'll ask you again, signor. Who are you?”

“Pale, creepy girls who don't like sunlight and can't be seen. Ha. Am I thinking what I think I'm thinking? But the city. Why shut down the city? Unless...”

“Leave now, signor, or we shall call for the Steward, if you are lucky.”

“Ooo.” The girls' teeth turn into needles, and the start to advance towards the Doctor and Aila, hissing. ”Tell me the whole plan. One day that will work. Listen, I would love to stay here. This whole thing. I'm thrilled. Oh, this is Christmas.”

He pulls Aila by the hand and the pair run from the school.

“Was that?” She stops, catching her breath.

“I don't know.” He answers. “But we should find Amy and Rory.”

As night begins to fall, they find Amy back where they started.

“Doctor!” She yells excitedly.

“We just saw a vampire.” All three of them shout at the same time just as Rory walks up.

“We think we just saw a vampire.” Rory states.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Amy was just telling me.”

“Yeah, yeah. The Doctor and Aila actually went to their house.”

“Oh. Right. Well.”

“Okay. So, first we need to get back in there somehow.”

“What?”

“How do we do that?” Amy asks.

“Back in where?” Rory looks lost.

“Come and meet our new friend.” The Doctor leads them through the city. When he finds where he is looking for he knocks on the door.

The man from before, answers the door. And leads them upstairs to a table where a map of Venice is laid out on the table.

“As you saw, there's no clear way in. The House of Calvierri is like a fortress. But there's a tunnel underneath it, with a ladder and shaft that leads up into the house. I tried to get in once myself, but I hit a trapdoor.”

“You need someone on the inside.” Amy points out.

“No.” The Doctor tells her.

“You don't even know what I was going to say.” Amy answers.

“Er, that we pretend you're an applicant for the school to get you inside, and tonight you come down and open the trapdoor to let us in.“

“Oh. So you do know what I was going to say.”

“Are you insane?” Rory looks at Amy like she has grown a second head.

“We don't have another option.”

“Well...” Aila points out waving at the group. “Hello”

“No!” Amy, Rory, and the Doctor all agree at the same time.

“I'll be there three, four hours, tops.” Amy speaks again.

“No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It can't keep happening like this. This is how they go. But I have to know. We go together, say you're my daughter.”

“What? Don't listen to him.” Rory yells.

“Your daughter? You look about nine.”

“Brother, then.”

“Too weird. Fiancé.”

“I'm not having him run around telling people he's your fiancé.” Rory interjects

“No. No, you're right.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean, they've already seen the Doctor. You should do it.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You can be my brother.”

“Why is him being your brother weird, but with me, it's okay?” Rory complains. “This whole thing is mental. They're vampires, for God's sake.”

“We hope.”

“So if they're not vampires?” Amy suggests.

“Makes you wonder what could be so bad it doesn't actually mind us thinking it's a vampire.”

“Fine” Rory gives in, and about an hour later he takes off with Amy to the school, the Doctor's psychic paper in hand.

The other three, make their way to a canal and wait by a gondola for Rory.

“Aila?” The Doctor asks while Guido paces a little away from the,

“Yes, Doctor?” She answers.

“You're always so quiet.”

“I like to observe. Besides I'm not very social. Don't get out much.”

“Right, two years wasn't it?” He asks.

“Look, there's Rory.” She points at him approaching looking worried.

“Let's go get Amy, before they turn her into a monster.”

The group gets into the gondola, Guido steering through the canals.

“She'll be fine.” The Doctor assures Rory.

“You can't promise me that, can you?”

“We're here.”

Aila, Rory, and The Doctor step out of the gondola, leaving Guido to wait alone as they make there way into a tunnel.

“Right. Okay, I'll go first. If anything happens to me, go back”

“What happened, between you and Amy? You said she kissed you.”

“Now? You want to do this now?”

“I have a right to know. I'm getting married in four hundred and thirty years.”

“She was frightened. I was frightened. But we survived, you know, and the relief of it, and so she kissed me.”

“Why Amy and not Aila?”

“I wasn't there. When we got home, I went to my room to pack. When we left we only had the clothes we were wearing. Amy was in her nightie.”

“Not helping, Pond.”

“Sorry”

“Rory. Rory, she kissed me because I was there. It would have been you. It should have been you.”

“Yeah, it should have been me.” He pauses. “Wait you both left with nothing but your clothes.”

“Yes, can we go and see about the vampires now, please?”

“I can't see a thing. Just as well I brought this, then.” Rory pulls out a tiny flashlight. The Doctor pulls out a much larger light.

“Ultraviolet. Portable sunlight.”

“Yours is bigger than mine.”

“Let's not go there.”

Aila chokes on a laugh.

“Enough out of you, let's go” Rory takes her by the arm and they follow the Doctor. He opens a nearby chest, it contains a rotted corpse.

“What happened to them?” Aila asks.

“They've had all the moisture taken out of them.”

“That's what vampires do, right? They drink your blood and replace it with their own.”

“Yeah, except these people haven't just had their blood taken, but all the water in their entire bodies.”

“Why did they die? Why aren't they like the girls in the school?”

“Maybe not everyone survives the process.”

“You know what's dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around.” Rory accuses.

“Rory.” Aila tries to calm him down.

“Do not even start with my, Aila. We'll get into that discussion once we rescued your sister.”

“Who are you?” Six girls appear. The Doctor waves his light at them.

“We should run. Run.”

The run straight into a group of people.

“Cab for Amy Pond?”

Amy and Isabella run in.

“Ah ha!”

“Rory.”

“Amy.”

“Quickly, through here.” Isabella leads them down a hallway.

“They're not vampires.” Amy explains while they run.

“What?”

“I saw them. I saw her. They're not vampires, they're aliens.”

“Classic.” The Doctor smiles.

“That's good news? What is wrong with you people?” Rory demands.

“Come on, Rory. Move.”

They reach a door pouring out. Isabella recoils from the sunlight.

“Come on run!” Aila reaches for her but Isabella is already inside. The Doctor touches the door trying to get in and it shocks him. He falls back knocking Aila down the stairs with him.

“Aila, Doctor?” Amy's voice sounds panicked but far away. “Are they okay?”

“Both breathing.” Aila can hear Rory leaning over here. His voice sounds heavy.

“Blimey, did not expect that” The Doctor's voice now. Shuffling can be heard. “Aila, Aila wake up. Come on, you're alright”

Breathe on her neck.

“Aila, please.” He whispers. Then everything fades away.

When she opens her eyes again, she is in a bed. Rory is sitting in a chair next to her. She tries to sit up but he stops her.

“Oi, take it easy. You hit your head pretty hard. You have a concussion. Need rest.”

“I'm okay.” She sits up ignoring the dizziness and nausea that accompany the motion. “Where's Amy? Where's the Doctor?”

“Amy's in the other room with Guido. The Doctor should be back any time now.” He explains. “Aila, we need to talk.”

“Not now Rory.” She swings her legs off the bed and stands. Rory catches her when she sways. They can hear the door open and shut in the other room. “I'd say the Doctor's back.”

They enter the room with the table again, Aila leaning on Rory a bit. The Doctor is scanning Amy's neck.

“You're fine. Open wide.” He puts something in her mouth and she shuts it making a face. ”Argh. I need to think. Come on, brain. Think, think, think. Think.”

“What'd I miss?” Aila asks as Rory helps her into a chair.

“You okay?” Amy looks her sister up and down. “You look terrible.”

“Says the girl who was just bitten by alien fish.”

“Point. If they're fish people, it explains why they hate the sun.”

“Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush.” The Doctor places a hand over Amy's mouth. He doesn't even look at Aila.

“It's the school thing I don't understand.” Rory adds.

“Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush.” The Doctor places his other hand over Rory's mouth.

“I say we take the fight to them.” Guido suggests.

“Ah, ah, ah.”

“What?”

The Doctor nods to Rory who places a hand over Guido's mouth.

“Ah. Her planet dies, so they flee through a crack in space and time and end up here. Then she closes off the city and, one by one, starts changing the people into creatures like her to start a new gene pool. Got it. But then what? They come from the sea. They can't survive for ever on land, so what's she going to do? Unless she's going to do something to the environment to make the city habitable. She said, I shall bend the heavens to save my race. Bend the heavens. Bend the heavens. She's going to sink Venice.”

“She's going to sink Venice?” Guido questions.

“And repopulate it with the girls she's transformed.” The Doctor tells him

“You can't repopulate somewhere with just women. You need blokes.” Rory points out.

“She's got blokes.” Amy realizes.

“Where?”

“In the canal. She said to me there are ten thousand husbands waiting in the water.”

“Only the male offspring survived the journey here. She's got ten thousand children swimming around the canals, waiting for Mum to make them some compatible girlfriends. Urgh. I mean, I've been around a bit, but really that's, that's eugh.” He makes a face. Above them thumping can be heard.”The people upstairs are very noisy.”

“There aren't any people upstairs.”

“Do you know, I knew you were going to say that. Did anyone else know he was going to say that?”

“Is it the vampires?”

“Like I said, they're not vampires. Fish from space.”

A window breaks. Alien fish poke their head in through the windows.

“Aren't we on the second floor?”

The Doctor waves his UV light at them, then uses his sonic screwdriver to reveal their true appearance.

“What's happened to them?”

“There's nothing left of them. They've been fully converted. Blimey, fish from space have never been so buxom. Okay, move.”

Everyone gets up to run. Aila stumbles into Rory as she tries to stand. He lifts her into his arms and carries her out of the house.  
Outside, a violent thunderstorm begins. The Doctor catches up with them after a moment.

“Rosanna's initiating the final phase.” He pulls out his screwdriver scanning Aila. “Just a concussion. Nasty one. Take her back to the Tardis.”

“You can't stop her on your own.” Amy argues.

“We don't discuss this. I tell you to do something, Amy, and you do it. Huh?”

Amy storms off.

“Thank you.” Rory nods at the Doctors.

“You're welcome.” The Doctor nods in return before heading away from them.

“Put me down.” Aila instructs and Rory sets her on her feet. “Go after Amy, I'll be right behind you.”

As soon as he leaves her alone, she follows the Doctor.

She reaches the throne room hiding briefly as Rosanna walks out. When she walks inside she can see the Doctor scanning the throne.

“Need a hand?” Aila smiles. The Doctor turns surprised to see her.

“What are you doing here?” He walks over to her.

“Helping.”

“You have a concussion. You need to be on the Tardis, resting.”

“I'm fine.” She tries to be convincing, ignoring the dizziness and pain.

“You're lying.”

Amy and Rory come running in.

“We're not leaving you.” Rory announces. “Also, had to come back for her.” He points at Aila.

“Right, so one minute it's all you make people a danger to themselves, and the next it's we're not leaving you. But if one of you gets squashed or blown up or eaten, who gets the...”

The house shakes, knocking all of them to the floor. The Doctor stands quickly lifting Aila to her feet. He keeps an arm around her waist.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Bit of an earthquake.”

“An earthquake?”

“Manipulate the elements, it can trigger earthquakes. But don't worry about them.”

“No?”

“No. Worry about the tidal waves caused by the earthquake. Right, Rosanna's throne is the control hub but she's locked the program, so, tear out every single wire and circuit in the throne. Go crazy. Hit it with a stick, anything. We need it to shut down and re-route control to the secondary hub, which I'm guessing will also be the generator.” He places Aila against a wall sitting down. “Please, just please. Stay here with them. I need you to stay with them.”

“Fine” She consents closing her eyes while Amy and Rory rip apart the throne. Once they finish Rory helps her to her feet and the all walk outside together.

They watch as the Doctor climbs up the tower, finally pulling apart a panel. Suddenly the weather clears and people can be heard cheering.

“He's done it.” Aila sighs, leaning against Rory. “Now, you can take me back to the Tardis before going to get him.”

Rory and Amy help her back to the Tardis and leaves as soon as she steps inside. She stumbles over to the stairs before sitting down.

“Hell of a concussion this is.” She mutters, rubbing her head and closing her eyes.

“Aila!” Her eyes fly open again to reveal she is still alone.

“Go away!” She mutters. “Please.” She closes her eyes again, resting her forehead against the cold metal railing until the door opens. She looks up to see Rory, Amy, and the Doctor walking in.

“What are you doing there?” Amy asks giving Aila a strange look. “You should be in bed.”

“This was closer.” She closes her eyes again.

“You need to rest.” Rory walks over kneeling in front of her. “You know, because you have a concussion.”

“I'm fine.” She plasters on a smile. The Doctor messes with some buttons on the consoles but he is watching them. Amy comes and sits down next to Aila on the stares.

“Aila? How long has it been since you took your meds?” Rory looks between Aila and Amy.

“Meds, what meds?” The Doctor stands behind Rory, confused.

“You don't know?” Rory turns around to look at him, then looks back at Amy. “And you completely forgot, did you? Too busy kissing the Doctor to even remember that your sister needs her medication!”

“Rory, my head.” Aila groans.

“It'll be okay. I got you.” Rory lifts her into his arms. “Just tell me how to get you to your room. You can rest. I need to have a chat with Amy and the Doctor.”

  


  


  
  


 

 


End file.
